Dear Friends
by PrincessOfYourDreams
Summary: Using an inter-dimensional transporter, Danny gets stuck in an alternate reality where everything is different. Amity Park is a complete mess and Sam is the leader of a ghost-fighting army, with Tucker, Dash, Kwan, and many others in it. Danny wants to help his friends, but first he needs to know : "What happened to this world?"
1. A Different World

**Danny POV**

"An inter-dimensional... what exactly?"

Clockwork sighed. "An inter-dimensional tranporter. With that, you can travel to a different reality. It has been stolen, and I want you to get it back." "But why me?" I asked him. Clockwork showed me a picture of Vlad. "Because he is the one who stole it."

I left for Vlad's mansion. I phased through his front door, searching for Vlad. But the house was too big, and I couldn't find him. "Well, if I can't find him, then he'll have to find me," I told myself, and I started breaking stuff and making a lot of noise. Finally I heard some footsteps. Vlad entered the room, and he didn't look happy. He was surprised when he saw me floating in the air, and he changed into his ghost form.

"Daniel? What is the meaning of this!? Why are you destroying my house!?" he asked me. I sighed. "Your house is too big. I couldn't find you." Vlad tried with all his might not to get angry. He failed. He shot an ecto-beam at me, so I turned intangible. After shooting it, he looked cooled down. Of course he wasn't, but at least I was able to talk to him now. As securance, I loaded a freeze-ray in my hand. "Did you come all this way just to pick a fight with me?" "Shut it, Plasmius, return the inter... the thing you stole!" He laughed. "I don't recall stealing something, Daniel." Just then, he dropped the transporter. It fell on the ground, which took very long, because we were both floating high in the air. I chased it, and picked it up from the ground. I wasn't sure why, but Vlad didn't go after the thing he dropped. He shot me with another beam. "You meant that thing? You can have it. It doesn't work anyway. Now go away!" He loaded another beam, so I quickly phased through his wall and left his house.

I was flying through the Ghost Zone, and I had almost reached Clockwork's place when I started thinking. _Why did he just give it to me? He said it didn't work. But then, why would he steal it in the first place? And why would Clockwork go through the trouble of calling for my help to get it back?_ I looked at the transporter. _Is it really broken?_ Suddenly, a light turned on. I panicked. "How do I put this off? There's gotta be some way... Maybe if I try pressing..." I couldn't finish my sentence, because I had accidently pressed the wrong button, and I saw nothing but light. I looked at it. Unexpectedly, it wasn't too bright for my eyes. In fact, it wasn't bright at all. It felt like it took forever, but then finally it disappeared. I closed my eyes. I heard an overwhelming sound. Then I fainted.

I woke up, lying on something that felt like a street. Surprisingly, it was. I was lying on the middle of the road. _I'm lucky I haven't been killed by a car._ I looked around. I wasn't in the Ghost Zone anymore. Everything looked like a messed-up version of Amity Park. All the houses and the streets were empty. Most of the streetlights were broken, or even cut in half. Most windows were also broken.

I stood up, and I noticed I had changed into human form. I walked around the street, but I couldn't find anyone. "Where is everyone? What happened here?" After a while, I reached Casper High. I looked at it. Broken windows, graffiti, and one room with light burning. The first so far. I changed into Danny Phantom and went inside, which was easy, because the front door was open. I walked through the hallways when I got the feeling I was being watched. I looked around, but I couldn't see anyone. "Hello?" I tried, but there was no response. Still, I couldn't let go of the feeling of being stalked. I walked on.

"NOW!"

A lot of people came out of the lockers, holding guns. They shot me with it, and I saw a lot of green light coming my way. When it had reached me, I felt enormous pain, and I couldn't help but scream. But during that scream, I could hear a small laugh before passing out again.

I woke up in a cage made out of pure ghost shield. No bars, or anything that made it look like a normal cage. I looked around, but I was in an empty room. I changed into Danny Fenton, walked out of the cage, and changed back to Danny Phantom. I walked out of the room, noticing I was once again in the hallways. I walked through, being more careful this time. Suddenly, I heard voices. I went to take a look, and I found Dash en Kwan talking to each other. They were both wearing jumpsuits, and somehow, they looked different. Stronger. I wanted to know what they were talking about, so I turned intangible and came closer, but suddenly, an alarm Kwan had with him went off, and in an instant they grabbed ecto-guns and shot around. I was having a hard job dodging everything, and after a very long minute they stopped.

"Think we got it?" Dash said. "I think so. Nothing can dodge so many shots," Kwan replied. _It? Nothing? Have I been promoted to a 'thing'? Great._

"Guys, what's keeping you? The next meeting is about to start!" a voice said. And around the corner, Paulina showed up. She was wearing the same jumpsuit as Dash and Kwan, her hair in a ponytail, and no make-up. She was less beautiful like this, but she didn't seem to care. "Sorry, we're coming." And the three of them walked away. _Meeting? I have to see that if I want to find out what's going on. But I have to keep my distance this time._ And I followed the trio all the way to the auditorium.


	2. They Aren't Recognizing Me

I phased through the door leading to the auditorium, only to see a lot of people I knew, but different. I saw Tucker, Valerie, even Nathan, and a lot of other classmates. All in a uniform that said, 'I'm ready to fight'.

"QUIET!"

A person appeared on the stage, probably the leader. And that person was nobody less than... Sam.

"Good job earlier this day. Was it succesfully put in the cage?" she asked. Dash took a step forward. "Yes ma'am." I couldn't believe my ears. "That's good. Valerie!" Valerie also took some steps forward. "Yes?" "You will ask it who sent it here and where its leader is. That might bring us some steps closer to finding _him_." Valerie left the auditorium. I didn't follow her, I didn't try to get back in the cage before she found it, because I wanted to know what was going on with Sam. All I knew was that it had something to do with the inter-dimensional transporter. _That's it! I just have to use it again, and then all of this will be over!_ I searched for it, only to notice I didn't have it anymore. _They must have stolen when they put me in the cage!_ I carefully tried to come a bit closer to Sam, still intangible, without making the alarm go off again.

"What's your next order, Leader?" one of the people in the crowd asked. Sam thought. "Go take the rest of the day off, all of you. I can't come up with a working plan yet." Just then Valerie came bursting in the auditorium.

"It's gone!" she gasped.

"WHAT!?" Sam reacted. "Just like I said, an empty cage. It's gone," Valerie told her. "That's impossible. Our cages are made out of the best ghost-shield. No ghost can pass through it." "Well, it still did, and now we have no idea where it could be. It could even be here now, listening to our conversation." Sam sighed. "New orders. Search for that ghost. We can't have it tell only the smallest details to its boss." Everyone in the crowd left, except Tucker and Sam. Sam sat down at the edge of the stage and Tucker walked up to her.

"You gonna be okay?" he asked, while putting his hand on her shoulder. Sam nodded, while looking at the ground. "We have to fight. He would have wanted us to do so." She walked out of the room, leaving Tucker behind. He sighed. "I'm so useless..." he told himself. Without thinking, I stepped closer to him, making his alarm go off. He immediatly turned himself in a ball hiding his face in his hands. "Help! G-g-ghost! Someone!" his reaction really surprised me. "Ssshhhh, stop screaming," I accidently said. He looked in my direction. I had already spoken, so there was no point staying intangible, so I got visible again. "Quiet! I'm not trying to hurt you!" He looked at me with that scared look. "B-b-back off!" he told me, "I c-c-can fight too, you k-k-know!" I sighed. "I know." He looked surprised. "Really?" I nodded. "Listen, I'm kinda lost, could you tell me what's going on?" His look softened first, but then he put up a brave face. "As if you don't know. HELP!" His scream was heard by someone, because the next I remember is being shot in the back. Again...

I woke up on the stage with ghost-proof handcuffs. Sam and Tucker were standing on the stage, and the crowd of people from earlier was standing behind them.

"Leader! It's awake!" one of them said. Sam turned around, looking me right in the face. I wasn't able to use my ghost powers with the handcuffs on, so I couldn't turn intangible. She grinned at me. It made me feel uneasy. "So tell me... Who sent you here and for what purpose? And you better tell the truth!" I said nothing, so she kept looking at me. It made me kind of sad to see her look at me like that. _Why won't she recognize me? This can't be the Sam I know. So there's only one option left... Clockwork ws right, I'm in a different reality. I wonder what happened to Amity Park... What forced everyone to fight... And then there's another question... Shouldn't there be another version of me in this reality? Could it be that... _My thoughts were interrupted by Sam. "Well, you gonna answer, you scum?" Sam obviously disliked me. Or maybe it is just ghosts she dislikes. She pointed an ecto-gun at me. "ANSWER ME!" Tucker grabbed her arm. "Sam, calm down! What's wrong?" She lowered both the gun and her head. "I'm sorry... I'm going out for a while. Take care of things here." And without waiting for an answer, she left. Surprisingly, nobody tried to stop here. I got curious and decided to ask about it.

"What's with her?" Tucker looked away from me. Then, Dash en Kwan came on the stage. They looked me in the eyes. "What's wrong with you all? She told us to take care of things here!" Kwan said. And he and Dash pointed more ecto-guns at me. My eyes grew wider and I got a little scared. "What were you trying to do sneaking around here?" "Nothing, really!" Dash looked angry. "As if we'd believe you!" "Well, Sam told me to tell the truth, so that's what I'm doing!" Their faces filled themselves with confusion and they lowered their guns. "How do you know... her name?"


	3. Was I That Close To Death?

"How do you know... her name?" Dash asked me. I started sweating a bit. This probably made me look even more suspicious. I just wanted to know what had happened to this world. "Could it be that you did a deep research before coming here!? Could it be that you found some information you could destroy us with!?" "No, it's nothing like that!" I told them. "Than what is it?" Dash screamed, while coming closer and closer to me, and I started feeling even more uncomfortable. I was searching for a good answer, but I didn't find one soon enough and Kwan decided not to wait any longer. He shot me with the gun and I rolled backwards. Of all the things you could hurt people with, an ecto-blast hurt me the most. But there was also a bright side this time, since I could pretend to have collapsed. And I did. As a result, Dash got mad at Kwan for knocking me out, since I was unable to answer now. They walked away without locking me anywhere, since I was unable to escape with the handcuffs.

"So, what're we gonna do now?" I heard Paulina ask. "Hmm..." Dash started thinking. "I think it's best to patrol the streets. Let's go!" And most people left the auditorium. And with most people, I mean everyone except Tucker, who stayed behind _again_. I opened my eyes. Tucker noticed, but he was less afraid than the last time we were alone. It seemed like he had much confidence in the ghost-proof handcuffs. I sighed.

"What's wrong with Sam? What does she have against me?" I asked him. He hesitated at first, but decided to answer my question. "She hates every ghost. But you're right, she hates you more than any other ghost we met so far." I knew it. "Why?" I asked him. He seemed a bit more relaxed now that we were just having a normal conversation. "I'm not sure, but I think it's your face." He looked up for a moment. "It hurts me too to see it, but it's not like you can do anything about it." He sighed. _My face? Of course, they're thinking about the Danny in this reality._ "Why does it hurt to see my face?" I asked him. "Actually, I'm not sure if I should be saying things like this..." he slowly said. "Please do so, I'm curious." "Well, alright. Where should I start...?"

"We used to have a friend, back when this town was still just a normal town. His name was Danny, and we knew each other since... always, I guess. He looked like you, but he had black hair and blue eyes. And he was human, of course. His parents were famous ghost hunters, but back then, nobody believed in ghosts. Anyway, one day, his parents made a portal leading to _the Ghost Zone_. We were all really curious, but in the end, it failed. Danny's parents left, but we stayed behind. Sam convinced Danny to check the inside of the portal, because she couldn't believe it didn't work. After a while, Danny agreed to look inside. He found a button, pressed it and..." Tucker didn't finish his sentence. Tears started pouring down his cheeks. "I-I'm sorry..." he said softly. "It's okay. If you don't want to talk about it, then..." "No, I'll finish my story. He pressed the button... and... there was a big... big... flash... sort of thing... and then Danny... Danny..." Tucker started crying again. Everytime he tried to dry his tears, there just came new ones. I put my hand on his shoulder, but he slapped it away, and he seemed to realize what he was doing. "W-wait a minute... why am I telling you this... you're a ghost and you're supposed to..." I never let him finish. "Like I said before, I don't have any reason to bring you harm, so I'm not going to. Please tell me what happened in that... flash." Tucker didn't seem to believe me. He took a few steps backwards. "He... HE DIED! So, now you know it! Happy!?" And he ran away as quickly as he could. I just sat there, frozen. _Died? Than... how come I survived in my own reality, without being even close to death? Or... was I? Was I on the verge of dying without even knowing it? I never realized..._

I was left behind in the auditorium, unable to use my powers because of the handcuffs, still a bit shocked from Tucker's story. I tried to imagine what could have happened after the Danny in this world died. At least the portal was activated, so there would still be small ghost attacks... but my parents from this reality would've taken care of it... I sighed. I neede to know more about this world before jumping to any conclusions. If only I knew how to get these handcuffs off. But having a key was probably the only way...

"That settles it. I'm gonna search for the key. But where do I start?" I stood up and walked to the doors. I pushed against them with my back, and luckily, they weren't locked. The hallway was empty, which was also very good for me. I didn't want to be knocked out again. Twice a day was more than enough. I slowly walked through the halls of what used to be Casper High, trying not to make any sound at all. Suddenly, I saw mister Lancer's old classroom. The place with the cages, I remembered. The door was open, so I walked in. There were more cages like mine, with ghosts in it. Most were barely alive. Well, ghosts weren't alive to begin with, but you know what I mean. I also saw a safe with a ghost shield around it. Probably a good place for a key. I tried to change my arms into human form, but it didn't work. Instead, I got a painful shock from the handcuffs. I gasped. I wouldn't be able to get the key if I couldn't change. Why didn't they just put me back in the cage without handcuffs? Then I remembered something. They were able to get me _in_ the cage, in ghost form, so there had to be a way to turn off the ghost shields. I searched the room, and quickly found some switches. I tried one, and an empty cage disappeard. "Not very well hidden," I mumbled, but I also realized it wasn't necessary to hide them. Ghosts couldn't get there from their cages anyway. I tried another switch. Another cage opened, but this one wasn't empty. Lucky for me, the ghost in it was too tired to stand up and I quickly turned the switch back. His cage appeared again, and the ghost was still inside. I sighed. There were enough switches for every cage and the safe together. After a lot of switches, I finally found the one to the ghost shield around the safe.

**Dash POV**

"Come on, get ready, you Snail!" Because of Kwan, we were always the last ones to leave the base.

"Alright, I'm ready," he said. "Let's go."

"Wait a minute!" Our inventor screamed, while running our way. I sighed. "Sure, right now, a minute more or less doesn't matter anymore. What's up, Nerdo?" That's how I called out inventor, because he looked like a nerd with his red baret and glasses, and of course, he _was_ a nerd because he was deadly afraid of ghosts and all he ever did was inventing weapons for us. "I made this new weapon, it might come in handy," and he handed a gun-like thing to us. "Okay, this is how it works, -" he was cut off by a sudden blackout.

"A b-b-blackout!" Nerdo panicked.

"Relax! We'll just find the source of the blackout!" Kwan stated. "Is there anything in the building that uses this much electricity?" Nerdo thought. "Nothing uses as much as the switches to open the cages..." I panicked. "The cages!? That's really bad news! I'll go there! Kwan, you take a look in Nerdo's invention room!" He nodded and we split up.

After a while, I finally found our old classroom, which was now being used as a storage room for the ghosts we had caught. I opened the door. All the neon-coloured shields made it possible for me to have a good look. And then I saw it. The ghost from earlier was standing in front of the safe. Its door was open and the shield was gone. On the ground I saw a key and... its handcuffs, opened.


	4. Something That No Kid Should Have Seen

**Danny POV**

I was looking into Dash's eyes. I just got the handcuffs off, and they were lying on the ground next to me. The reason he had discovered me was probably the blackout, which I had caused by pulling too many switches.

His eyes looked scared. He quickly grabbed a weapon and shot, but missed.

"No! Out of power! Stupid guns!" he screamed. I decided not to take the risk of being shot again, so I turned intangible and phased through the ceiling. When I reached the sky, I turned visible again. But I remembered everyone was patrolling the streets, and I wasn't going to take a risk. I flew to a dark alley and changed into Danny Fenton. But since they couldn't see my human face either, I had to hide myself. Turning intangible would work for a while, but I had to find another way to hide myself since I was going to need a lot of my power soon.

Even though I was intangible, the alarms weren't going off because I was also in human form. I discovered that fact when I was walking terrifying close to Paulina and nothing happened.

After a while, I passed a clothing store. It had a big sticker saying 'Out of business', but I decided to take a look anyway. I looked around me, and when I was sure no one was looking, I turned visible. The door was locked, but there was a huge hole in the window, so I came in through the window. The store was a complete mess, all the clothes were lying on the ground, and in the corner there was a huge man from about fifty years old sitting next to an oil lamp, with nothing more than a small blanket to keep himself warm. He looked up when he heard me.

"What ya doin' here?" he muttered.

"Do you have a jacket for me? One with a big hood."

"I ain't givin' ya anythin'. Get the hell outta here."

I sighed. "I can pay for it." He looked up hearing the word 'pay'.

"What ya talkin' 'bout? Humans these days ain't have money to spend. Especially not if they're li'l kids like you. Don't go lyin' to me."

I grabbed my wallet. "Is ten dollar enough?" I asked him while showing him the money.

His eyes grew wider. Then he grinned. "I don't know where ya got it, but I ain't complainin' if ya wanna waste it on somethin' stupid like a jacket. Pick anyone ya like." I looked at the ground. I saw a lot of clothes. I grabbed a black jacket that looked like it was my size and tried it on. It had a big hood which even covered my eyes if I looked at the ground. I smiled and gave the man the money.

I was walking on the streets, thinking. Back in my Amity Park, it was impossible to but a jacket this good for ten dollars. So I guessed most people were very poor. That was probably also the reason the city looked like this.

After walking for another while I reached the plaza. Suddenly, I heard a little child crying. I looked up, and saw that it really was a crying child. A boy from about five years old. I sat down next to him.

"What happened? Why are you crying?"

"Mo-mo-mom-mommy got... got..." he couldn't say it. Suddenly, I noticed we weren't alone. I looked up in the sky. I saw a ghost flying in the air. One I didn't know. On the ground in front of us, I saw a woman covered in blood.

"Is that your mommy?" I asked the boy while pointing at the woman. He nodded. I figured she probably got killed by the ghost. An ecto-beam suddenly came our way but missed. I looked up.

"That was just a warning shot. Scream and I may spare your life," the ghost told us while smiling. Without hesitating, I grabbed the kid and ran away, the ghost coming after us. He shot an ecto-beam. I decided not to dodge, and turned intangible and the last moment and visible again as soon as the beam hit the ground. I looked behind me. The ghost looked confused. I didn't know whether it was because he didn't know why it missed or because he had seen me turn intangible, but it didn't really matter.

"Aaaahhh!" I stopped running and looked behind me. The ghost looked like he was in a lot of pain. Next to me stood Valerie. I hadn't even noticed her.

"That's what you get for picking on humans!" she told the ghost. Then she looked our way. "Are you okay?" she asked me. I nodded. I was happy I bought the jacket, because she didn't recognize me.

"Why you!" the ghost screamed.

"Quick! Run!" Valerie instructed me. I nodded. My first priority was to bring the child to safety. Above that, I knew Valerie was a very skilled ghost hunter, and I trusted her.

While running I looked at the child. "Is there any place you can go?" He looked at me. "We can go to my aunt. She lives near the bakery with my uncle and cousin." I smiled. I knew the location of the only bakery in Amity Park.

We had arrived at the bakery and the streets had been completely empty for the last few minutes. "Where is it?" I asked the boy. He pointed at a little flat. "There. Second floor, red door." That was probably how he remembered adresses. The door was already open and I entered the building. I took a few stairs to the second floor and soon I saw a red door.

"Here?" He nodded. I knocked. "Hello? Anyone home?" An old woman opened the door. She looked at the boy.

"Maurice? Is that you? Who's that guy?"

"My name's Danny. His mother got killed by a ghost and I kinda saved his life. He told me to go here."

"Oh, I see. That was very brave of you." An old man showed up behind the woman.

"Lily, dear, who's that with your nephew?" he asked.

"His name is Danny. It seems like Rose got killed. By another one of those terrible ghosts."

"How awful." The man looked at me. "Would you like to eat diner with us? We happened to get a little more today, so go ahead and say yes. We would like to thank you for saving Maurice's life." I just noticed how hungry I was, so I nodded and came in. Lily closed the door. Their house was one big room with only one door that said 'bathroom'. In one of the corners, there was something that looked like a kitchen. In the left, close to another broken window, I saw three mattresses lying on the ground. There was also a small couch and a table. On one of the mattresses sat a girl from about eight years old. She had long, dark hair and she was wearing a thin dress.

"You can sit here," the man said. I sat down on the couch.

"Diner's almost ready!" Lily told us. I felt really nervous. The girl, Maurice's cousin, walked up to me.

"Who are you?" she asked. Her father sat down next to her.

"That's Danny. He's a hero who saved Maurice's life." My face turned red. The girl smiled.

"That's really good of you. My name is Katy." I smiled. "Hi Katy."

We were eating diner. It wasn't much. Some soup and a bowl of rice, but I could taste the love Lily had put in it for her family.

"So, Maurice... Are you going to live with us from today on?"

"I would like to, uncle Matt." I actually felt a bit sorry for him. Only five years old, and he saw his mother die in front of his eyes. He probably didn't have a father either. He was lucky to have a loving family like this, but still...

After diner, Matt talked with me. He asked me all kinds of questions about me, but I didn't answer much of them. I had to be careful not to tell anyone about my reality.

"So, I guess I have to leave now."

"Do you have a place to stay?" Lily asked.

"Not really, but I'll find something."

"Then why don't you stay here for the night?"

"No, I really don't want to be a burden to you guys. Thanks for diner. I'm leaving now," and I walked out of the apartment. _She was right... I really don't have anywhere to go._ I put the hood over my face before leaving the building.

_So... where do I go now?_


	5. What A Leader

After walking over the streets for a while, I noticed Dash and everyone had stopped patrolling. Of course they had, it was too dark to see anything, since all the street lights were broken.

The cold wind blew in my face. I shivered. I walked a bit faster. I really had no place to go. Then I got an idea. _Maybe I can go to Fenton Works. If no one's home, at least._ And I changed my course to my house.

When I reached Fenton Works, no light was burning, some of the windows were broken and it looked abandoned. Not very different from all the other buildings. But unlike the other houses, the door was locked. Not that it mattered, I just phased through the front door.

The living room was a mess. All the furniture was broken or missing and the room looked like it hadn't been cleaned for about a year.

"I guess no one's home..." I took a look at the other rooms. All the same as the living room. With one exception. My bedroom. Although it was just as dirty as the other rooms, all the furniture was exactly the same as always. I yawned. I decided to go to sleep. Without bothering to change my clothes, I lay down on my bed and fell asleep.

A sunshine peeking through the window woke me up. I slowly opened my eyes and noticed I hadn't been discovered yet. I took a look at my watch. "7 am. Time to get up." I left the bedroom very quietly, in case someone had come home. But it didn't seem that way. _That's weird... Are mom and dad still gone? Sure, lucky for me, but why? No, there's no time to think about that. I have to make plans for today. What am I gonna do?_

I left Fenton Works not long after that, since there wasn't any food for me to eat. my stomach growled. "Guess I didn't eat enough after all last night." It was surprisingly light for the time of the day, but also surprisingly cold. "Another good thing about the jacket. It keeps me warm in times like this."

"Move it!" I looked at the direction of where the sound came from, noticing too late that someone was coming my way and because I didn't move we both fell.

"I told you to move! Now I lost track of it! This is not good..." I couldn't believe it. The person who just tripped over me was... Sam. She looked at me. "Well, you gonna apologize?" We both stood up. "Sorry," I said, while trying to lower my voice as much as I could.

"Well, nothing we can do about it now. I'm Sam. What's your name?"

I panicked a little. "Oh, uhm... well, I'm... Daniel." I hated to give her my full name, but I couldn't come up with another name and I couldn't tell her my name was Danny either because she would immediatly start thinking about the Danny from this world.

"Hey... how old are you?" she asked me.

"Why do you want to know?"

"That's not an answer!" The Sam of this world could be prety bossy when it suited the situation.

"F-fourteen."

"Can you fight?"

"Fight? What kind of question is that?"

"I was thinking... maybe you could join our rebel army against the ghosts. Do you hate ghosts?"

"Uhm... guess I do... But I'm not sure if I can join your army... I still need to...-"

"That's okay. I'll give you some time to think. Wanna go for a walk?"

"S-sure." What was with her? As far as she knew, she didn't even know me. I was a complete stranger to her. We started walking, without a destination. I decided to put on a conversation.

"So... about this rebel army of yours... what is it about?" She looked at me.

"Why do you wanna know?"

"That's a weird answer. I thought you wanted me to join. I should at least know what you're rebelling against." As if I didn't already know. I just needed to hear it from her mouth.

"As if you don't already know." She took the words right out of my mouth. "Ghosts. What else?"

"I see. But... why?"

She ran in front of me and turned around, forcing me to stop walking. She looked me right in the eyes, so I looked down to make sure I didn't reveal my identity.

"Are you stupid or what? Are you actually gonna tell me that you don't know what they're doing to us? What hardships they're putting us through!?" Tears welled up in her eyes. "It's not fair... What have we ever done to them? What did we ever take from them? Nothing. But them..."

"Hey Leader!" Star's voice. She came running our way. Sam quickly dried her tears.

"What's up?"

"I'm sorry, they all escaped."

"What!? Can't you do anything right? Ugh... forget about it. We're gathering up in the park. Tell the others." Star nodded and ran away. Sam ran a few steps in the direction of the park. Then she turned around. "What's keeping you? You wanted to know about our army, right? You can watch us if you like." I nodded and ran after her. To the park.

We arrived first. Then Dash and Kwan showed up. Then Valerie, Star and Paulina. Then some other members of the rebel army. Tucker never showed up. I wondered why, but then I remebered his reaction when facing a ghost. Chances are he was too scared to come.

"Okay everyone, I heard you screwed up again. Not surprising actually. Anyway, we're getting ready for the ceremony tomorrow. All my previous orders are dismissed, just as long as you make sure you're ready for tomorrow. I don't want to lose anyone again... like last time... That's it! Oh, and don't mind this moron here." She pointed at me. "He's just gonna watch us for a while. Be sure to give him a good example. Got that?"

"Just wait a minute... who the heck is that guy anyway?"

Sam smiled. "He's a moron who got in my way earlier. Therefore, he has to work for us if he doesn't want to be eliminated. His name is Daniel!" _Eliminated? And she said it so casually... The others didn't react to it either... Does this mean that eliminating people standing in their way is normal for them? That's pretty scary... I'll have to watch out..._

Dash walked up to me, and looked at me from top to bottom. I tried to pull my hood a little more over my face.

"Fine, we'll show you what it's all about here... But don't think I trust you now. I'm only doing this 'cause Leader tells us to."

"That's what I wanna hear!" Sam said, while smiling.

"I'm having mixed-up feelings about this..." I said, but no one replied.

"What are you guys still doing here? C'mon, get moving! Or are you gonna wait for an invitation of some sort? Go! Go, go, go! And everyone quickly ran away in different directions. Sam looked at me. "You too! Do something!"

"But what should I do?"

"Hmmm... you go to Casper High. That's out headquarters. For the time being, of course. There's a guy there who makes weapons for us. Tell him I told you to deliver some of them to the others. Let's see... 24 new guns... 24 contact devices... 24 warning belts and 48 ghost-proof nets. Got it?"

"You seriously want me to deliver ALL those things?"

"Within an hour, if possible."

"AN HOUR!?"

"Well, I did tell everyone to get ready, and they can't do that without weapons." She looked me in the eyes again. "You can do that, right?" Her voice sounded scary... very scary.

"Y-yes ma'am!" Now I understood why everyone listened to her.


	6. The Big Plan

"All together that's... 120!? Are you absolutely sure Sam ordered that many?"

"Like I said, 24 guns, 24 contact devices, 24 warning belts and 48 ghost-proof nets. By the way, you're pretty lucky. _I_ have to deliver them all!"

"Okay, I'll look in the storage room." Tucker left to look for Sam's ridiculous order of weapons. I looked around his room. He was using the janitor's closet, but it was all different. There were four computers, a table with parts of weapons and, of course, a lot of weapons and other stuff on the ground.

"You're lucky. I found everything, so I don't have to make some more weapons."

"But why does that make _me_ lucky?"

"Making weapons takes a lot of time..."

"Oh, I get." _If I had to wait for him for a very long time, I would never make it in an hour... And then Sam will probably get mad._

"Okay, let's see... 24 warning belts..." my face turned pale when I looked at them. I knew those. They didn't only give a warning when a ghost was around, like they did earlier, they also had software to give whichever ghost who touched it a huge shock, like the ones in my reality.

I took a step backwards. "Could you maybe give me the others things first?" _I have to avoid direct contact with them._

Tucker looked confused. "Okay, but I don't really see why... Okay, 24 contact devices, 24 guns, 48 ghost-proof nets..." By now the pile of weapons I was holding was high enough to make sure I didn't touch the belts. After I got them, I left Casper high to search for members of the rebel army, but because the pile was covering my face, I couldn't see very well, and before I knew it, I tripped over the roots of a gigantic tree, and everything I had carried was lying in front of me.

I sighed. I was gonna have to pick them up. _All of them._ I started picking up the contact devices, which were the closest to me.

"I see you're doing a good job." I looked up. Sam... I was so dead. She sighed. She picked up one of the betls, and put it on. Then she picked up a gun, contct device and two nets, and attached them to her belt. Then she help me picking the other things up, and after a minute or two I was able to hold everything again.

"Don't fall again. You have about 45 minutes left." And she left. I walked on, searching for the other members. After a while, I saw Dash.

"Hey! Over here!" He looked my way. Since he didn't come here, I walked over to him, almost tripping again when finally there.

"Delivery guy, eh? Nice..." _Of course it's not nice to do this!_

"I have a contact device, a gun, a belt and... 2 nets for you. Could you grab them yourself?" He didn't like that request very much, but what other choice did he have? I needed my hands to keep the pile in balance.

"Sure," he said with a grin. He grabbed a belt first, then the nets.

"Careful!" I told him, but he wasn't careful at all. Quite the opposite, when grabbing a contact device, which was at the bottom of the pile, he used so much force that he forced the pile to fall again. He smiled.

"Oh, sorry, how careless of me. Well, I'm off, I've got important things to do. Good luck cleaning that up." And he turned around and walked away. He made me angry. This was the second time the pile fell. Without thinking, I shot him with a freeze-ray.

"AAAHHH! COLD! What the... MY BUTT IS FROZEN!" He turned around.

"It was a ghost! He went that way!" I said, pointing in a random direction. Of course, Dash immediatly after the 'ghost', which was hard with a frozen butt. As soon as he was far enough, I started laughing. But I soon realized that I was gonna have to pick everything up again, and there was no one around to help me. I had to think of a way to carry everything around without touching the belts, and without making everything fall again.

I started by picking up one of the nets, but when I touched it, it accidently jumped open. I tried to think of a way to fold it up again, when I came up with an idea.

I used one of the guns to shove everything onto the net, and then folded it up into a bag. I swung it over my shoulder and smiled. This would do. It's true that I couldn't use my powers when touching the net, or rather, my bag, but it was so easy to just let go of it that I didn't even consider it a problem. I walked on, searching for more members of the rebel army

"Hey! I'm here!"

"You've got some nerve! You're ten minutes late!"

I sighed. "I'm sorry... I tried really hard, but this city is just too big."

"Well, it was your first time, so I'll have mercy."

"Well, there is one thing..."

"What?"

"You see, I've got one set of weapons left... But I don't think I forgot anyone..."

"Did you give yourself already?"

"What?"

"Of course I ordered some for you too! Excluding Tucker, this army has only 23 members! Didn't Tucker tell you?"

"No he didn't..."

Sam sighed. "That stupid..."

"Uhm... thanks for the weapons, but I don't think I'm gonna need them..."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, I'm not really gonna join yet, you know, so I don't think I'm gonna need these..."

"I guess it's up to you to decide that, but I don't really agree. Besides, what if something happened when none of us is around? But, like I said, it's your choice."

I really didn't want to make her worry, it's just... I could take care of myself, even when a ghost attacked me. That, and the fact that I was a bit afraid of the weapons that were meant to eliminate ghosts, including me.

Sam grabbed her new contact device. "Everyone! This is your leader! Gather up in the auditorium! Now! I have something important to discuss!" She put the thing away again. "Come on, we're going to headquarters."

"Uhh... sure!"

It was getting pretty noisy in the auditorium. I was sitting on the edge of the stage, and people gathered up in front of me. I started counting people. One, two, three... twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two. With Tucker and Sam, that was everyone.

The lights went off. "SILENCE!" a voice from behind screamed. It was Sam. Everyone immediatly obeyed, as if their lives depended on it. Well, in some way, there could have been some truth to that.

"Better. All of you know that tomorrow is _the_ day...-"

"What day?" I asked her. But right after I said that, I wished I never had. How would Sam react if someone interrupted. She sighed.

"The day of the ceremony. And we're gonna wreak some havoc there."

"Why? And how?"

"THAT'S WHAT I'M ABOUT TO TELL YOU! Geez..."

"S-sorry... Please go on."

"Okay, tomorrow at 12, the ceremony will begin in front of the city hall. All the people from Amity Park will be there. Then, the portal will go open and _he_ will come. I need twenty of us to stand in the crowd and distract all the guards. Three of you will be with me, and we will pass through the portal. There, I will explain things further. Now, for who's coming with me... Valerie, Dash and... Daniel here."

"WHAT!?" I screamed. I looked her in the eyes. "I thought I said that I wasn't going to...-" The scray look in her eyes made me swallow my words. Plus, if I wanted to know how to help, I needed to know of their enemy, so therefore it was pretty fortunate that she picked me. Not like I was afraid or something, in fact, I probably was the most powerful person in this room. I might even be able to protect Sam and the others from the ghosts.

"Alright, I'll come."

"Good."

I thought about her plan. It sounded pretty good, beside the fact that Dash also was coming with us. But with 'portal', did she mean a _ghost portal_? I knew that this town was somehow taken over by ghosts. Was she planning to go to the ghost zone? For now on, I just had to play along with her plans...


	7. I Couldn't Do Anything To Help

Sam checked her watch. "11:59" she told us.

"Come on, we've been waiting for half an hour! Can't we just go already?" Dash was getting pretty bored.

"The portal hasn't even opened yet. We'd just blow our only chance at surprising them," I told him.

"What was that? Tryin' to lecture me, you bastard!?"

"Cut it out, you two!" Valerie said. "Are you really that immature? It's gonna open in a few seconds! Relax!"

"Quiet, it's opening!" Sam brought an end to our bickering. We looked at the front door of the city hall from the roof, the place were we had been hiding for the last thirty minutes. We saw a green light appear and the people from Amity Park started whispering with each other. "There he comes...", "What cruel things will he do today?", "I'm scared...", those kinds of whispers. The green light turned into a portal. I felt my heart beat going up. _Wait, what? Why am I so nervous? It's just another ghost, I can take him on! I'm not scared at all! Than why is my heart beating so fast?_

The first people to come out of the portal were guards. They made two rows, on the left and right side of the portal. Most people took some steps backwards, fearing for their lifes. After that, four guards carrying a sedan chair came out of the portal. Around the chair, there were black curtains, so I couldn't see who was riding it, but I could feel it was a ghost, a powerful one. Probably the one who took over Amity Park.

"Is that...?"

"That's him. The ruler of our world. The most powerful ghost there is. Even we weren't able to catch him. He never shows his face to anyone. We've never seen it before too," Sam explained. "Now we just have to wait for..."

A gunshot was heard and one of the guards collapsed.

"NOW!"

The twenty members of the army that were in the crowd all come out at once. People started screaming and some ran away, in fear of their lives. Others stayed watching, too curious to run away.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?" one of the guards screamed. Everything below us turned into chaos.

"The portal is closing..." Valerie whispered.

"Okay, we're going now," Sam said. We jumped off the roof. Well, actually, Sam jumped off and forced us to follow her. In all the chaos no one noticed us, and we all got through the portal safe and unseen.

I couldn't believe my eyes. The Ghost Zone looked just like the human world. Instead of all the small floating islands, there was one big island. There were a lot of run-down houses and fabrics. With one exception. On the other side of the island, there was a palace. It was a bit scary, but very tidy compared to all the other buildings.

"Amazing..." I heard Sam say. Apparantly, she hadn't been here before either.

The portal behind us closed and we couldn't hear the sound of chaos anymore. Everything was just silence now. A very panful silence.

"Come on, this way," Sam ordered us. She ran away and we followed her. I was behind the others.

Suddenly, my ghost sense went off. I could feel the presence of a ghost behind us. Luckily, he hadn't noticed us yet.

"This way," I told everyone and I ran into an alley. When I came there, I noticed that no one had followed me. Taking a look on the streets, I saw Sam and the others fighting with the ghost that had been following us. But they were losing... I had to do something...

I turned into ghost form, but just when I wanted to do something, more ghosts came to see the fight, and some started helping their friend. It didn't take long before they were cornered. And all I could do was watching from the sidelines. I hated myself for that.

Soon, some ghosts in uniform came and took Sam and the others away. Before I realized it I was all alone. I walked out of the alley, still in ghost form. Some of the ghosts that were still on the scene saw me, but didn't pay any attention. Luckily, these ghosts didn't hate each other.

I sat down on the edge of the street and sighed. I had to think of plan.

A while later, my thoughts were interrupted bu the portal opening again. First some guards came through, then the guards carrying the sedan chair, curtains still closed, and then more guards. I tried to listen to a conversation between two of them.

"That was a surprise..."

"Yeah, totally unexpected..."

"Humans are such lowly creatures, trying to mess with us..."

"We couldn't even catch one of them..."

A third guard joined the conversation. "Quiet! His Highness is in a very bad mood right now!" After that, I couldn't hear anything. But I had already heard enough. At least all the others from the army were safe. But it also made me mad. _How could they talk about humans like that?_ Soon, the row passed me. Some guards looked at me. In the end two guards walked up to me. The others walked on.

"What are you doing here, kid?" I recognized his voice. This one was one of the guards from the conversation.

"Shouldn't you go home or something? You know it's very dangerous on the streets." And this was the other one from the conversation. It made me mad.

"Hey, are you even listening?"

After a while, I walked away, leaving behind two frozen guards. I could still see the row guards in the distance. I decided to follow them.

I flew after them, keeping enough distance. We walked over the entire island and I started losing track of time. But after what seemed like a thousend years, they reached the palace. The front entrance was guarded by another ten guards. _Geez, just how many guards does one person need? He already had a hundred guards with him... And I don't think there aren't any guards in the palace... In fact, this may not even be so much compared to the level of people in the palace..._

I hid behind one of the buildings and watched over the palace. Nothing happened in the following hour, and I got a bit bored.

"Hey, you there..." I looked behind me. Three ghosts. I could tell that they weren't guards or anything like that. The one in the middle smiled. "Ya wanna enter the palace?" I put my guard on. Something was not right about these people.

"Hey, can ya hear us?"

"What's it?" I asked.

"Wanna go in there?"

"Who are you?

"I know a secret passage..."

"A passage?"

"If ya pay me a hundred bucks then I''l tell ya about it." _I should have known. Everything is about money here. Guess these people must live some pretty poor lives._

"I don't have that much. Now, if you'll excuse me..."

His look changed. More... agressive. "Then disappear!" He tried to punch me, but I dodged and turned his arm around. He screamed in pain, and I let my freezing powers loose, which froze his arm.

"Hey, you! What did you do!? Release me! Now!" The other two looked pretty angry too. "What did you do to our big bro!? Who are you!?" Another came at me, and I froze him too. They didn't seem to have any special powers. I looked at the last one. "Are you going to fight me too?"

He smiled. I shot an ecto-beam at him, but he turned intangible. "Unlike my big brothers, I have powers, you know?" His voice echoed, and I couldn't hear where it was from. _I have to concentrate..._ I turned intangible too, just in case. I listened closely, but I couldn't hear anything. No footsteps, no breathing, nothing. _Is he still here? I can't hear anything... Did he go away? But then, why would he suddenly leave, just after telling me how strong he is? Wasn't he very confident?_

"Don't worry..." An echo again. "If you free my brothers then I will let you go... You don't wanna fight me... I'm very strong..." He really was very confident. I stayed quiet for a while. _How should I react? Should I just accept defeat? Or should I take the risk and fight him?_

"I guess that's a no... Too bad... Now, begone, you with the power of ice!"

_Behind me!_ I turned around, only to see a very angry ghost, ready to hit me anytime.


	8. It Was All Set Up

I closed my eyes and shielded my head with my arms, waiting for him to hit me. I waited for seconds, but nothing happened. I slowly removed my arms and opened one of my eyes. Someone was stopping him from hitting me. His right arm, which he tried to punch me with, was stopped by someone else.

"What is this? Who are you?"

"Hehehe... It's not nice to pick on children..."

"You don't get it! He started it! This kid is a monster!"

"Yeah, sure... As if I don't know the nature of you outlaws..."

"It's true! Look at my brothers! They're frozen! He did it, I swear!"

"Then I thank him for that... You're wanted criminals, remember? No one will ever choose your side!" And the person who saved me put some ghost-proof handcuffs around his wrists. He took a step forward, and came out of the shadow he had been standing in.

_What's this? A guard?_

"You know, these people are wanted criminals. Thanks to you, we've been able to capture them. Would you like to come with me to HQ? I contacted my boss and he wants to speak to you."

_This sounds way off, but I guess I'll have to accept for now... And I can't help Sam and the others if all I do is sit around, right?_

"Alright..."

"Good, follow me."

He didn't say one more thing until we reached something that looked like a prison. Or actually, there were two prison next to each other.

"Why are there two buildings? They aren't even connected to each other, and they are seperated by a fence... Does your boss really own both prisons?"

"Quiet and follow me."

We entered the building on the right. The door shut again right after we did so, and for a moment it was all dark, but then lights went on. There was a big hallway with a very high ceiling. The guard, followed by the criminals, started walking. So I had no choice other than to follow them.

After a very long walk we found ourselves in front of a very big door, at the end of the hallway. The guard opened it and let everyone in. It was a very big room, and on the side, in front of a window covering the whole wall. The person sitting on the chair behind it turned around, now facing us.

_What is this? Why is he here? Okay, it seems logical, but still... Why?_

"I'm the head of the Ghost Police. I make sure everyone follows the rules. You can call me... Walker."

Suddenly, I heard a clicking sound. I turned around, only to see the guard was releasing all of the criminals.

"And you..."

I turned to Walker again. Suddenly I felt somthing around my wrists.

"...are under arrest."

"What? What are you doing? Let me go!" I couldn't use my powers with the handcuffs. Annoying stuff...

"We... see everything. And we catch those who break the rules..."

"What rules!? What did I do!?"

"And one of those rules is not to lay a hand on the royal guards."

_Did he see how I froze those guards?_

"You know what I'm talking about now, right?" I couldn't say anything. The guard pushed me outside of the room. "Don't worry, I'll bring you to your cell."

"Wait! At least tell me who made these stupid rules!"

Walker smiled. "The Great King himself."

A while later, I was sitting in one of the cells. It turned out that the criminals weren't actually criminals, they were also guards who went undercover to fool me. I sighed. I could never rescue Sam and the others this way.

"Hey you!" I looked around, surprised. _Where did that come from?_

"I'm in the cell right to yours! I saw them take you here! Come stand against the wall, I want to talk to you." I didn't have much to do, so I decided to take on his invitation to chat with him.

"What are you here for?"

"Fighting royal guards. And you?"

"Same. I can't stand those people. The name's Skulker."

_Skulker? In the cell next to mine? Talking about a turn of events..._

"I'm Danny. Danny Phantom."

"Okay Phantom, wanna break out? I've been making preparations lately, but I need a partner. The guy in the cell right to mine is a loser, so I had to wait for someone else to arrive..."

"Break out? Sure! What are your plans?"

"I'll tell ya tonight, when we can come out of the cells."

He was right, later that night, a guard come to pick me up. I was brought outside on the court, together with everyone else. I looked around for Skulker.

"Behind you!"

I turned around, Skulker standing behind, or actually, in front of me. I wasn't surprised because I recognized his voice. He didn't look any different from the Skulker I knew.

"Alright, tell me your plan."

"Well, okay. I have some guns in my arms that can destroy ghost-proof handcuffs, but I can't reach my own. So I'll destroy yours, and then you'll destroy mine, got that? By the way, around this building is an invisible ghost-shield that's turned on whenever we can go outside. When we escape, we have to turn it off. There are also ghost-shields hidden within all the walls, so the only time we can escape as in the evenings."

"And do you know how to turn it off?"

"No, I get all my information from when other people try to escape. No one has ever done that before."

"And you said you had a plan!"

"Quiet!"

"Wait a minute..." _If he destroys my handcuffs, I can change into a human... And since humans can pass through stuff in the Ghost Zone, and through ghost-shields..._ "We don't have to do it outside... If you just destroy my handcuffs, we can do the rest inside."

"I don't get you at all... By the way, the guards will notice that you don't have handcuffs when they bring you back inside."

"But you have normal handcuffs, right?"

"How did you know?"

_Because I know all of the weapons you have access to, since you always try to kill me._ "That doesn't matter! You have them, right?"

"Yes I do, but I don't get..."

"ONE MORE MINUTE!"

"No time to explain! Hurry up!"

"I swear that I will kill you if you leave without me!" A gun came out of his wrist, and he shot at my handcuffs. They immediatly broke.

"OKAY, EVERYONE BACK TO THEIR CELLS!"

"Quick, quick!"

"I know, I know! Here they are!" And he put the normal handcuffs around my wrists.

"YOU TWO OVER THERE! YEAH, I'M TALKING TO YOU! COME HERE, TIME TO GO BACK INSIDE!" Skulker and I quickly listened to what he told us.

Back in my cell, I waited until the coast was clear. I walked to the wall on the right.

"Is the coast clear over there?"

"Yeah, but I still don't get what you're up to."

"You'll see."

I turned my wrists intangible, and the handcuffs fell on the ground. I changed into human form, turned invisble and tried to walk through the bars. I succeeded. I waited for the first guard to walk by. That took about a minute or five. He didn't see me, because I was still invisible. I waited for my chance, and then I overshadowed him. I walked to Skulker's cell, and grabbed the keys the guard had with him.

"What do you want from me?" Of course, he thought that I was a real guard.

"It's me," I told him in my own voice.

"Phantom!? How did you...?"

"No time to explain! I'll try to open your cell." I looked at the keys. There were three of them, all with numbers written on them. '0829', '7613' and '2603'. I tried all of them, but not one fitted. Then, I saw a number on Skulker's cell's keyhole. '8217'.

"Come on, hurry up!"

"I'm sorry, I need to search for the right key. This one doesn't have it."

"Then find another guard!

"There should at least be 8217 keys!"

"Then what are you still doing here!?"

"Excuse me, but what is going on here?"

I turned around. There was another guard, and he had probably overheard our entire conversation. Without thinking first, I quickly jumped out of the guard and ran away, without turning visible first. Soon, an alarm went off. There was a voice that said, "Prisoner loose, prisoner loose." I thought about leaving the prison and search for Sam and the others for a second, but I couldn't betray Skulker. Even though it was the same guy, this one had never tried to kill me before.

_What should I do?_


	9. Struggling To Keep A Promise

I was standing right before the front entrance. Behind me, there was imprisonment. In front of me, there was freedom. But also... betrayal. I heard footsteps. The guards were drawing closer. I had to make up my mind now.

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

I turned visible and put my hoodie down. I waited for the guards to come. The footsteps came closer and closer. "_We know you're here!"_ echoed through the building. And soon afterwards, I was eye-in-eye with an army of ghost-guards. Their faces were filled with confusion. If I hadn't been so serious, I would've laughed my head off.

"A-a human?"

"What's a human kid doing here?"

"How'd he get here anyway?"

"What should we do with him?"

"Don't look at me, how should I know?"

"Wait, is it just me, or is it getting chilly over here?"

"Not just chilly, it's freezing here!"

"Look at the floor, it's turning into ice!"

"Is that even possible?"

"Hey, look, that kid doesn't look like he's cold at all."

_Oh, how I love my ice powers. _They helped me a lot today. The guards started shivering, and soon lowered to the ground. I stepped up to them.

"Which one of you has key number 8217? And you'd better tell me, or I'll freeze you right here, right now."

The guard in the front looked up at me. He looked angry.

"I... do."

He grabbed it from his belt and held it in front of me. The number indeed was '8217'.

"Great. Now give-..." His hand turned green from ecto-energy, and he broke the key in a thousand pieces. Because this broke my concentration, it got warmer, and the guard was able to stand up. He put his fist around my neck and loaded an ecto-beam in his free hand.

"Looks like the tables have turned now."

I put my hands around the wrist from the hand that held me. I froze his wrist, but at the same moment, he shot me with the beam he had already loaded, causing me to fall back. Well, at least I was free now.

"We have you surrounded!" As I looked behind me, I saw that there was another group of guards standing behind me.

"Geez, is this the only job ghosts can get or something?"

"Give up, we have you outnumbered!"

That last thing was surely true. I had no choice but to use a lot of my power at once. I copied myself into two. Still in human form, of course, it would be bad if they found out my ghost identity. I took a deep breath and then used the ghostly wail on both sides. It worked pretty well, and both sides were completly out when I stopped. I felt a bit dizzy and immediatly absorbed my clone.

"I... I did it." But I felt like I had lost. The key was gone, and I couldn't keep my promise to Skulker. "Come on, get yourself together!" I stood up and changed into my ghost half. My powers hadn't fully recovered yet, but I didn't care. I quickly found my way to Skulker's cage.

"Hey, Phantom, found the key yet?"

"Yes..."

"Great, now free me!"

"It's... broken. He destroyed it. The key is gone."

"What!?"

"Hey you two!"

The sound came from the cage next to Skulker's, with the so-called 'annoying' neighbour.

"I know that voice a bit too well..."

"You again?" Skulker spouted, "leave us alone! Like I told you, we aren't helping you!"

"That's mean..."

"So... this is your neighbour?"

The neighbour answered in Skulker's place. "Glad you asked. I am the invincible, great, without a doubt truly evil, Box-..."

"SHUT UP!" Skulker screamed.

"Oh, but you said the key was destroyed, right?" he asked me.

"Yes I did."

"If you free me too, I'll tell you how you can open his cage without the key."

"What!? Tell me!"

"First you have to promise to free me."

"Okay, okay, tell me."

"The boss around here, Walker, has a special key. It's said his key can open every single cage in this prison. If you can steal that, you can free us both."

"That's amazing! So I just have to beat Walker, right?"

"W-wait, I said steal, not beat! What are you thinking!?"

"Don't worry! I'll get it right now!" And I ran off to Walker's office.

I ran thorugh the prison hallways. My footsteps sounded hollow because it was all empty. Soon, I stood in front of the big door leading to Walker's office. I swallowed. Then I shot the door with an ecto-beam. The hole I made was just big enough for me to pass through. Of course, I could've phased through the door without wasting energy, but I wanted to make a big entrance to draw his attention. And that's exactly what I got.

"My, my, it's you again. The door wasn't locked, you know, now I have to repair it all again."

His calmness made me mad. But getting all angry would just dull my reactions, so I held it in. I tried to stay calm myself.

"You don't need to worry about that now."

"You want this, don't you?" He showed me the key. _How did he know?_ He grinned. "I told you, I see everything."

He lay the key in front of his feet, and then made a powerful force field around it. "This field will only disappear if I pass out. So you're gonna have to fight me."

"I was already planning to!" I screamed, while running at him. I had a plan. I tried to punch him, and he blocked it. Then I froze the hand he blocked it with. Then I did a step backwards and flew up, before he could do something to me. Walker tried desperatly to break my ice.

"More powerful than it looks, right?" But the moment after I said that, he broke my ice into a thousand pieces.

"Dream on, kid." He jumped and joined me in the air. The ceiling was very high and our heads almost touched it, so we flew pretty high. I dodged a few ecto-beams he shot at me. They looked more powerful than the ones the other Walker shot.

We both hadn't had a hit in ten minutes and we were pretty tired. He was pretty good with dodging and defending. I decided to speed up a bit before I used up all my powers. I put my hands together and shot a bigger, faster beam, but even that one disappeared when touching the shield Walker just made. I felt tired and I didn't have the energry to do another big shot again. Walker, on the other hand, had only defended and dodged for the last ten minutes. Then I got an idea. _Why didn't I think of this before?_

I changed back into a human, which caused me to fall. But, even though we had been flying over 50 feet above the ground, I landed perfectly on my feet. Walker's eyes grew bigger.

"What is this!?"

I was surprised. He said he 'saw everything', so I thought he should at least have seen me transform one time, but he clearly hadn't. I grabbed my backpack from my back. I opened it. All the weapons Sam had given me were still inside. I shot one of the ghost-proof nets at Walker, but it missed. Didn't matter, I had another one. But, to be sure, I grabbed it from the backpack and changed back into my ghost form. I flew at Walker with full speed. He shot a few beams at me, but I dodged them. When I almost crashed into him, I shot the second net, and it hit. He flew backwards and eventually hit the wall. The net made him feel weak, and eventually the force field around the key disappeared. I grabbed it.

"Thank you very much!" He only looked at me with an angry face. And I left for the cages from Skulker and the Box Ghost.


	10. Breaking Out And Breaking In

_Almost there... I'm almost there..._

"Phantom! It's you! And it's that..."

"You _actually _did it?"

"Y-yeah, looks like it." I was still a bit tired. I ran as fast as I could. I took a look a the key I had. It was twice as big as any ordinary key, and it spread a strong blue glow.

"What are you spacing out for!? Hurry up, free us!"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it! How does this work?"

I held the key closer to the keyhole and tried to find out how to open the cage, when the glow grew bigger. It flew to the lock and the door of the cage disappeared. It took both of us a second or two to realize it, but then a grin appeared on Skulker's face. He grabbed the key from me and held them to his handcuffs, who disappeared the same way the door of the cage did.

The Box Ghost smiled. "My turn, my turn!" he screamed. But Skulker shot an ecto-beam at him.

"As if I'd help you!" He looked at me. "And you, you're just as pathetic as he is! I'll let you stay alive because you saved me, but you'd better not meet me again!" And he phased through the ceiling. I tried a 'wait!', but it didn't work. I looked at the Box Ghost.

"I'm sorry."

"That jerk! Once I'm outta here, he'll feel my wrath!"

"Quick everyone! The sounds came from upstairs!" The guards.

I looked at the Box Ghost. I couldn't just leave him behind here, I promised that I would free him.

"They're coming..."

"Quick, escape!" I didn't understand. Why did he tell me to run away and leave him there?

"Listen, that metallic guy is a jerk and a traitor, but you are a good person! You fought the big boss to help us, instead of escaping by yourself! Now go away!"

"But..." _Why is saving him so important to me? It's JUST the Box Ghost. Is it because of my promise?_ "I'll defenitely come back!" And I phased through the ceiling.

From the sky above the prison, I had a pretty good view of the Ghost Zone. The castle seemed even bigger and scarier than before. And the longer I looked at it, the bigger and scarier it seemed. _That's where he lives. Whoever took over the Ghost Zone AND the human world, that is. I really wonder who it is. But that's not the main issue now!_ I looked over the floating islands. Or island, because they were so close to each other that you could barely tell them apart. And I finally found what I was looking for. A ghost in metal with a small, blue, glowing thing, flying away from the prison. I flew after him with full speed, and chased him like that for a while. When I had almost reached him, he turned intangible and entered a small house. I turned intangible and followed him.

It was a small wooden house with wooden furniture and no doors to other rooms. There was one oil lamp for light and warmth. On a bench, I saw a woman with blue flaming hair and a white face.

"You! How dare you show your face again!?"

"Honey..."

"You were gone for three months!"

"I was caught by the police! I've been in prison all this time! But look what I've got!" And Skulker showed her the key.

"You managed to steal that! That thing's worth a fortune if you sell it to the right gangs! Oh, how could I ever doubt you! You'll always be my sturdy little Skulky!" And they grabbed each other's faces and kissed for over a minute.

_Gross!_

They would've stayed like that for I-don't-know-how-long if I hadn't taken action. I froze Skulker, and grabbed the key from his hand, while accidently turning visible.

"What!? You little brat!" She grabbed her guitar and played a loud tune. It blew me against the walls, and broke my ice around Skulker.

"What!?" He looked at me. "What do you think you're doin', you little-"

"Is this what you stole the key for!? To sell it to bad guys! Come on, tell her! You stole this from me! You broke your promise!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about!"

_His words. I heard them, but I wasn't listening. 'I don't know who you are...', 'This is my key...', 'I never promised anything, you little brat...'_

"If you break a promise, you'll have to pay for it yourself," I said quietly.

"What!? Can't hear ya over there!" Skulker said.

"C'mon Skulky, finish him off already!"

Skulker pointed a gun at my head. "You took the words right out of my mouth, babe." He looked at me. "Any last words?"

I stood up, but I was still looking at the ground. "You have to pay," I said even more quiet than before. And I was going to make him pay. I used my ghostly wail on him, and he flew towards the wall. But the wall broke at my overwhelming power, and Skulker flew out of the house. A lot of stuff flew out, and so did Ember. Some houses behind Skulker and Ember's house also broke, because they weren't very strong. By the time I finally stopped, there was a whole path of destruction before me. I looked at the key, and I left for the prison. But at the time I arrived there the prison on the right, the one I had entered, had double as much security as before. Maybe even three times as much.

"No way I can break in there!" For some reason the second prison, the one on the left, drew my attention. I didn't see any improvement in the security there. And I suddenly remembered something.

"Sam... Valerie... Even Dash... I also have to save them... I almost forgot..." I flew down to the ground and changed into a human. I put the key in my backpack. And I wasn't sure why, but I left for the prison on the left. It seemed too strange to me. To my surprise, I could easily phase through the main gate.

_That's weird. I'm sure the other prison had hidden ghost shields in the walls._ The courtyard was empty. But to be sure, I turned intangible. I also succeeded in phasing through the main entrance. There was this same hallway with very high ceilings. I figured that if I would say something, an enormous echo could be heard. After a while, I reached a place with cages. I couldn't believe my eyes. Instead of ghost, these cages were filled with humans.

_I see... So there are seperate prisons for humans and ghosts..._

My thoughts were interrupted by a scream. It came from upstairs.

"NO! STOP! NO MORE!"

I quickly ran to the first stairs I could find and climbed up. The screams became harder and harder. I was standing in front of a door when they sounded so close that I thought I recognized the voice. I looked at the door. Itwas very old, and its sign said, 'To-tur- Ro-m'. _A torture room!?_

I phased through the door. A painful scenery appeared before my eyes. Sam, Valerie and Dash were chained at the wall. Dash and Valerie had already passed out, and now a ghost was holding Sam's head with his big filthy hand.

"Stop it! No more!" Sam started gasping and her eyes slowly started to close, while she was trying with all her might to stay awake.

"What? Passing out already? But our fun just started! C'mon, be a good girl and play with me a little while longer." And he hit her with a green-glowing whip. And again. And again. And again. Until her face and body were all red. Her head hang down, and I couldn't see if she was still conscious or not.

I turned visible. _Good. No one has seen me yet, so my identity won't be revealed. Wait- This isn't what I'm supposed to think about right now!_

"C'mon, let's have some more fun, shall we?"

"Don't you lay another hand on her!"


	11. A Reunion With Someone Who Just Met You

"Don't you lay another hand on her!"

"And if I do...?" the weird ghost asked me.

"You don't want to know that."

Sam looked at me, barely able to keep her eyes open. "Da...nny..." And she passed out. _She called me 'Danny' this time, instead of 'Daniel'. It's because she passed out before saying the 'el', but still... It makes me happy._ I looked at the ghost. My happiness changed into hatred just by looking at him. It made me feel sick.

"I don't understand... people don't break in here quite often. You must really be longing to have some fun, right? Well, I don't mind, I was getting bored playing with these weaklings anyway."

"Sam... she is not weak. She is trying her hardest to fight for what she believes in, even though everything seems hopeless. Looking at her... gives me strength to fight for her. To fight _with_ her. But _you_... You make me sick..."

"Well, that turned into quite a speech. Why don't we try to solve this with actions, instead of words?"

"Agreed!" He grabbed his glowing whip and tried to hit me. I made a shield, and it deflected his whip. A cloud of dust appeared and I started coughing. _I feel a bit... powerless... Have I already used up too much of my power today? This is no good... I need to beat that attitude out of him, but at this rate..._ His whip made an overwhelming sound when it hit the ground. It had missed me by an inch.

"No good. I missed."

_No time to think! _I grabbed my backpack. _Anything useful in here?_

A contact device. _Useless!_

A warning belt that gives me a shock when I touch it. _Could have been useful, only problem is that I'd be in just as much pain as he would be in._

A gun. _Yes!_

I grabbed the gun and dropped my backpack. I aimed it at the ghost's head. _Please work!_ I fired some shots at him. They all hit his forehead. _Yes!_

The green bullets turned liquid and disappeared into his forehead.

"What?"

The ghost, who had kinda looked like a man until now, changed into something that looked like a lion made of ecto-energy.

"This is my real form! I'm made of ecto-energy, and I can absorb it as much as I like! Your ecto-bullets are useless against me!"

I ditched the gun. _No good either. _I made blue rings appear around me. _Good, I still have enough power to do this._ The rings travelled up and down and changed me into my ghost form.

"Well, well, I already thought you were no human, but this exceeds my expectations."

_I have to end this quick, before I'm all out of power._

I let the temperature in the room drop, preparing a powerful ice-blast. My neon-green eyes turned ice-blue and... turned neon-green again. Not because I was out of power, but because Sam, Dash and Valerie, who were unconscious started shivering. The lion's eyes twinkeled as they looked at me.

"What's this? Afraid to attack?"

"Nothing like that!" I ran up to him, and hit him with the most powerful ecto-blast I could make. I repeated that several times, but he didn't move an inch.

"I told you, didn't I? I can absorb ecto-energy as I like."

I took a step backwards. I felt my power running out. I needed a way to beat him, without harming Sam and the others, without using too much power and without using ecto-energy. _I can think of only... one way. It'll hurt, but for their sake... I'll endure it!_

I ran up to my backpack and put my hand in it.

"What's this? More weapons? You're full of surprises, aren't you?"

There it was. The warning belt. I grabbed it, and instantly felt an enormous pain. It ran through my nerves and I felt like I was struck by a thousand knifes. I dropped the backpack and slowly walked up to the lion. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. And he would aslo be hurt. Before he knew what I was doing, I put the belt around his neck, and he started screaming. He tried to remove it, but I held on tight.

"Let me go! Why're you doing this? It hurts you as much as it hurts me, right?"

"I'll endure it! For their sake, I'll endure whatever is necessary to help them!"

"Stubborn, eh? Well, anyway, I wanna thank you. Finally someone I could enjoy fighting. Someday, I'll come back for you. And then, I'll beat you." And he fell to the ground. I let go of the belt. Now that the pain was over, I finally felt how much power I had used up today. My body forced me to change back to a human. I walked over to my bag and pulled the key out.

_I wonder... if... it works... on their... chains..._

With the key in my hand, I walked over to Sam. My vision was blurry, and I could barely stand, let alone walk. I reached the hand with the key out for the chains, but everything turned black, and I didn't even feel the impact of falling to the ground.

"Wake up!"

I felt something painful. Someone hit me on my head. I slowly rubbed the painful place and opened my eyes. Sam was looking at me. Behind here stood Valerie and Dash.

"Come on! How long are you gonna make us wait!?"

I quickly went into sitting position before she would hit me again and pulled my hoodie even more over my eyes, in order not to be recognized.

"Are you guys... alright?"

"Yeah we are. That blue key freed us from the chains, and we're okay now," Valerie told me. Taking a good look at her, she had a lot of wounds from the whip.

"Wait, what happened to that ghost?"

"Behind you."

I turned around. The ghost had returned to his human-like form and was caught in a ghost-proof net.

I sighed. "That's good. So, what're we doing now?"

"That's obvious. We're gonna rescue Jazz Fenton."

"Oh, you're gonna save her... That's good... Wait! WHAT!?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. She's also one of our members. She got caught last month. This entire mission was about rescueing her. She knows more about ghosts than anyone here, and Tucker needs her help in making weapons. You didn't actually think we came to this zone without a main goal, right?"

"O-of course not!" Of course I did! I felt so stupid.

Suddenly I thought of something. How was I supposed to save the Box Ghost right now?

"She has to be in one of these cells. We need to find her without the guards noticing."

"And exactly how are we gonna do that?" Dash interfered.

Sam hit him on his head. "How should I know? _You're_ the ones who are going to do it!"

"WHAT!? _You're_ our leader right!?"

"Yeah, I am! And that's why you _always_ have to respect me in _everything_ I'm doing!" She hit Dash on his head again.

"Please stop, we need to think clearly!" Valerie said.

"Yeah, I agree with her."

"Why don't we split up into two groups," Dash said, "I'll go with Val, and you two go together."

"Sure!" we all agreed.

A while later, Sam and I were walking in the depths of the prison, and watching the people in the cells. Some begged us to save them, some threatened to kill us and some had gone crazy. It was hard to watch, but both Sam and I knew we'd only waste our time listening to them, so we tried not to pay attention.

I was looking at the ground, walking behind Sam. I thought of the Box Ghost and how to save him. I started walking more and more slowly and suddenly I noticed I was standing still.

I looked up. "Hey, Sam, I..." Sam was gone. I had been walking too slowly. I started walking around and around, searching for her, but it seemed hopeless. I looked at the cells. I sighed. I kept walking and walking, until I came to a cell that looked empty. I stopped and looked at it.

"What do you want?"

In the shadow, there was a chair facing away from me. The person who sat on it stood up and walked over to me. The person came face-to-face with me, and her expression changed from dull to surprised to scared. She started screaming, loud and long.

"Jazz..."


	12. Do I Hurt Her Just By Being There?

As soon as Jazz saw me, she started screaming. Had she recognized me? Well, the reason didn't really matter. I had to act quickly. I put my hand through the bars of her cell and covered her mouth. I used my other hand to grab the back of her head, to stop her from running away. She stopped screaming. Her eyes looked scared and some tears had welled up.

"Ssssshhhhhtt..." I said slowly and soft, to calm her down. I told her to calm down, and I could feel her breathing more slowly.

"Yeah, like that. Okay, I'm gonna let go now, so don't start screaming, okay?" She nodded. I let her go and she did a step backwards.

"What is going on?" she asked me.

"You're Jazz Fenton, right? I'm part of the rebellion army and we've come to free you. Well, we got seperated searching for her, but Sam, Valerie and Dash are somewhere in here as well..."

"But, you... And I... Are you..."

"Yeah, Tucker told me about this. You thought I was your little brother who died several months ago, right?" She nodded slowly.

"So, you're not..."

"Yeah, I'm just a guy who happend to look like him. My name is Daniel."

"But...," Tears started to fall on her cheeks, "His name was also..."

"I'm telling you, it's a coincidence. Calm down."

"Okay... I'm sorry for reacting like... this. But exactly how are you going to free me?"

I grabbed my backpack, in search for the key. But all that was in there was the contact device. _Oh yeah, Sam and the others used the key to free themselves from the chains._ I grabbed the contact device and tried to turn it on. I kept pressing different buttons, trying to hide the fact that I didn't knew how it worked.

"Give me that," Jazz commended. I did as she told me. She flipped a little switch over and the thing started giving light. She gave it back to me. "Hold down the red button for a while, and then you can talk in it. It's probably connected with Sam's, since she's the leader," she said.

I nodded. "Thank you." I looked at the contact device. There was a huge, red button on the side, so I held it down for a few seconds. I heard a peep, and then it was silent. Although I swore I heard some faint noises coming from the thing.

"Hello? Who's this? Why aren't you saying anything?" the thing suddenly said, in Sam's voice. I felt embarrassed. She had been listening to my silence for about a minute, and I didn't even notice.

"Sam? It's me. Where are you?"

"Daniel! Where are you now? l totally lost you! I joined up with Val and Dash, though. They're here now. Wanna talk to them?"

"No, I believe you. I found Jazz, I'm with her right now."

"What? That's great! Wait, stay there! we'll come to you. We'll use my tracking device." After that, my contact device peeped three times and then all the sounds stopped. The lights went out. I sighed and put it back in my backpack. I looked at Jazz. She looked down at ground, and her eyes looked dull. She was sad.

"Hey Jazz... I can call you Jazz, right? About your brother... Do you miss him?" My sudden question scared her for a second, but after that she looked me right in the eye. But, after about a second or five, she decided that she couldn't do that and looked at the ground. I thought she was not going to answer anymore when I thought I suddenly heard a small sound.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?"

"I said yes."

"So, that means you do miss him?"

"More than anything. He... he didn't deserve death. He never did anything wrong... So then why..." She started crying.

"Hey you two!"

"Sam! Valerie! Dash!" I was happy to see my friends again, because I didn't really know how to calm Jazz down right now. Jazz quickly dried her tears, because she didn't want Sam to see her crying. She forced a smile her face.

"Sam! Guys! Long time no see!"

"Jazz! Good to see you too! We're really sorry we couldn't come earlier."

"That's okay."

I decided to join the conversation. "Do you still have the key?"

"Of course we do, silly! Val, key!"

"S-sure," Valerie said. She grabbed the blue key from her backpack and used it on Jazz's cage. The bars disappeared and Jazz, who had been leaning against them until now, tripped and fell onto me.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said.

I kept my eyes closed tight because right now, my entire head was exposed. I corrected the position of my hoodie and stood up. I grabbed the blue key from the ground and put it into my backpack.

"No, it's not your fault," I told her.

Dash decided to interrupt us. "Guys, hurry up! Or do you think the guards will wait for you?"

"Guards?" I asked him.

"Yeah, guards! Those guys walking around in these hallways! Or do you think they would skip this part, especially when you're making so much noise!?"

"Oh, but that's not a problem," Jazz told him, "Almost all the guards have been sent to the other prison, because some ghosts broke out."

"They did?" Valerie asked her, "But wasn't the ghost prison always incredibly good guarded?"

"It was," Sam told her. "I don't know how they did it either."

A while later, we made it to the exit. Sam signed that we had to stop.

"Okay guys, we made it this far, but it's gonna get difficult now. In the court of the ghost-prison, there are about a hundred guards, at least. They'll be able to see us through the fence. Anyone a plan?"

Dash got angry. "You're the leader, but you never have any plans! What is this!?"

Sam hit on on the head, and he passed out. "I repeat, anyone a plan?"

"I think I've got one," I told everyone.

"Great! Someone who is good for something! What is it?"

"It's... kind of difficult to explain... I'll go outside, wait for five minutes, and then escape!"

Sam nodded.

I went outside, and changed into Danny Phantom. The guards on the other side of the fence noticed me and tried to come to me, but I was already on their side. "There you are, you scum!"

**Sam POV**

It was incredibly noisy outside, and I wondered what kind of trouble he had gotten into.

"This can't be right! His plan must have failed! We must help him!" Jazz said.

"No! We'll wait for five minutes like we promised!"

"Don't you hear that!? Something must be wrong!"

"I trust him!" _I trust him, right?_

**Danny POV**

Within four minutes, all the guards lay out cold on the court of the ghost prison. It took longer than I expected, because all the guards from inside the prison had come to help their colleagues. But finally, I was done. I flew to the inside of the prison and searched for the Box Ghost's cell. When I finally found it, the Box Ghost had already seen me. He was waving and jumping and he had a big smile on his face. _Idiot._

"When I heard those noises, I knew you were coming to save me! And you did! It makes me so happy!" He started crying and sobbing, out of happiness.

"Yeah, yeah, listen, I don't have much time, so I'll open your cage and then I'll leave. And you won't follow me, got that?"

"Aye aye, sir!"

"Whatever..." _Such an idiot. Well, always better than the one who always tries to be scary._

I held the key against the bars of his cell and they disappeared. He came out and gave me a big hug, in which I almost stopped breathing.

"Bye bye!" he screamed. And he flew away, to the exit. I changed into a human and looked at my watch. Seven minutes had passed since I left the others.


	13. Facing Your Most Painful Memory

As fast as I could, I ran through the hallways. Some ghosts in cells looked weird at me, because I was in my human form, but if Sam and the others found me first, for which a miracle was necessary, because I was still in the ghost prison, I had to be in human form. I kinda knew the way in this prison by now, and it helped that there were no guards to avoid, but it sill felt like it took way too long for me to get out. And when I did, there was only a court filled with unconscious guards. I ran out of the court, and straight to the court of the other prison, the one for humans. It was totally empty. On the gate, there was a little piece of paper. I quickly grabbed it.

_If you read this, we did as you said. We waited for five minutes, and then we escaped, like you told us. If you're not Daniel, please deliver this to him. We all hope you're safe, and we're waiting for you back at HQ. We're not gonna ask how you made sure all the guards were out cold, nor are we gonna ask where you've been. The back of this paper contains a map to a secret way out. Please come back safe._

_Sam._

I flipped the paper, and the back indeed contained a map. There was a big round-like thing that was probably the island. To help me visualize the island in it, there were to squares with the words 'prison' in them. There was also another square that said 'castle'. There was a cross in front of one of the prisons. And there was a line from that cross to where I probably had to go. There was only one thing. At one point, the line left the island and continued in the sky. It wasn't much of a problem for me, since I could fly, but Sam didn't know that. How did she expect me to leave the island? Well, for now it was probably better to just go that way and find out.

I changed into a ghost and followed the line on the map as narrowly as possible. And when I got colse to the spot where I was supposed to leave the island, I heard voices.

"You IDIOT!"

Then I heard a big noise, as if someone was being hit. I changed into a human and ran to the place where the sounds came from. Dash was lying on the ground out of pain, and Sam looked really angry. Meanwhile, Valerie and Jazz were trying to wake up a ghost.

"How's he supposed to fly us when you knock him unconscious!?"

"Hey guys! What's going on?"

"Oh, and what were YOU doing all this time?" Sam was clearly not in a good mood.

"You... weren't gonna ask, right?"

"Can't you read!? I wasn't gonna ask WHERE YOU WERE! Now I'm asking WHY YOU WERE TAKING SO LONG, YOU IDIOT!"

"Look, he's waking up!" Valerie suddenly said.

"Yeah, another question. What is that ghost doing here?" I asked.

"It's what we always do. We capture a ghost or two, and then we use them to fly us," Valerie told me.

"But SOMEONE here found it necessary to knock him unconscious!" Sam said, while looking at a certain person.

"It's not my fault! He was asking for it!"

"Anyway, is he ready to fly now?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Okay, everyone, get on."

I was nervous as I got on. I was also doubting his ability to fly. He was like a whale made of ectoplasm. He really looked like all he could do was swim.

"Okay, everyone ready?" Sam asked us.

I heard some hesitating voices.

"Okay, whatever! Hold on, we're going!" _Hold on? To what?_

Sam, who was sitting on his head, gave him a kick in his forehead. The ghost understood what she meant. He slowly moved his tail up, as if he was gonna swim on the air. I was expecting his tail to go down with the same speed. Silly me. His tail went down again with a speed maybe ten times greater, and he started flying with the same speed. Of course, I was the only one stupid enough to sit on his back instead of his head, so I fell all the way back to his tail. I quickly grabbed one of his fins.

"Why didn't you tell me this thing is going so fast!?"

"I told you to hold on to something! You're the one who didn't want to sit here, on his head!" _So it's my fault again..._

"I'm amazed this thing can fly at this speed..." I said after a while. "No, forget that. I'm amazed it can fly at all."

Valerie turned her head around. "That's exactly what I thought when I first rode this thing."

"Almost there!" Sam said. Within seconds, the ghost whale had completely stopped, and even the people on his head, who were able to hold onto something fell to his back. Since I was already clinging to his tail I had nowhere to fall to, so I fell off. I quickly changed into a ghost and flew back to his tail, grabbed it and changed back. Within the chaos of stopping so suddenly, no one had been paying attention to me. I climbed back on his back.

"You okay?" Sak asked.

"Yeah, somehow. Why did you stop it so suddenly?"

"I didn't. It's the only way he can stop."

"Then at least give me a warning!"

"The best way to learn things is to experience them."

"That's not what I'm talking about!"

"What are you moaning about? You didn't fall off, right? You're not injured, right? Then you have nothing to complain about." _I really did fall off. But I can't tell her. She'll kill me. For real._

I was curious what their 'secret way out' was, so I looked around. There was a little floating island, and floating behind it was a portal. One that I knew very well.

"Hey, this portal... Where does it lead to?"

"Where do you think? Amity Park of course!" Dash told me.

We all got off the whale, and jumped on the floating island, which had just enough space for the five of us. Sam gave the ghost whale a kick on his forehead, which made him scream out his cries in pain.

"Now get lost!"

He flew away as fast as he could and within seconds, he disappeard from my sight.

"Why did you do that? He gave us a ride, didn't he?"

"That's because we forced him to! Besides, he's still a ghost. And I HATE ghosts."

"By the way, this island... why isn't it connected to the other ones?"

"It's too small. There are a lot of these islands floating around in the Ghost Zone," Jazz explained.

"Okay, I'll give Paulina the signal to open the portal," Sam said, while sending a text message through her phone.

"You're not gonna use the contact device?"

"That thing isn't inter-dimensional. This phone is our only way to talk to someone on the other side."

I turned around, waiting for the portal to open, like Sam told me. _Our portal... We're gonna use our portal to get back to Amity Park._ I looked at Jazz. She didn't look too good.

"Hey, are you alright?"

She looked up from her train of thoughts and looked at me. "I'm sorry. I was just remembering something. It's nothing."

_I know what you're thinking about. This is the place where the other me died. That must be really hard for you. Now that I think about it, it must be hard for Sam too._ I looked at her. I saw she had s difficult time facing the portal, but she was trying to stay strong, for us too. I couldn't imagine what kind of feelings she had now, because I never experienced the death of someone so close to me.


	14. I Wish There Was Another Way To Do This

The doors slowly opened and a white light spread in the Ghost Zone. Through the door, I saw Paulina and Star standing in our basement, next to the control panel. Sam jumped through first, and Dash and Valerie followed her. But Jazz hesitated. I noticed the sad look in her eyes and grabbed her hand. She looked at me, confused.

"Let's go through together," I told her. Without giving her the chance to refuse I jumped through, pulling her along. When we all arrived in our basement, Paulina closed the portal.

"C'mon guys, we're going back to Casper!" Sam said, and she immediatly ran up the stairs. She probably wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. I ran after her, still holding Jazz her hand. Dash followed after us and Valerie came in last. Saw was waiting at the front door.

"Took you long enough! C'mon we're getting outta here," Sam told us, and ran away before we had the chance to catch up with her. I wanted to go back together with her, instead of her running far for us, so I got kind of annoyed. I decided to increase my speed so that I could catch up with her. My ghost powers allowed me to run faster than a normal human, but Jazz had some problems with keeping up. I was still holding her hand, even though I had totally forgotten about her. Right now, I was thinking about catching up to Sam, who also started running faster and faster. So I did the same. Faster, faster, faster, to an inhuman level.

"H-hey, you, wait! I can't keep- AAHHH!" Jazz tripped and fell right on her face. I stopped to check on her. Her face was covered in blood.

"Hey, Sam, come back for a minute! Jazz is bleeding!" But Sam was still too far away to hear me. She ran and ran, and I doubted her destination being Casper High. Maybe she needed to be alone for a minute. I helped Jazz with standing up.

"Are you alright?" I asked her. Her face was covered in scratches and she was bleeding a lot.

"Y-yeah, I'm alright..."

"Sure? 'Cause you don't _look_ alright..."

That moment, Dash and Valerie caught up to us. They were both gasping. "Guys, alittle slower next time, 'kay? I mean... Wow, what happened to you?" Valerie asked as she saw Jazz's face.

"You're totally beat up! Wait, sit down for a minute, I've got bandages."

Jazz listened and carefully sat down on the ground, leaning to a building. She waited patiently as Valerie was bandaging her face. Dash and I looked at it.

"Come to think of it, where's Sam?" Dash asked.

"We were trying to catch up to her, but then Jazz fell."

"So, all done!" Valerie said. I looked at Jazz. She looked like a mummy. But I decided not to say that to her.

The six of us, including Paulina and Star, who caught up with us right after Valerie had finished bandaging Jazz's face, walked to Casper High together. The streets we crossed didn't look any better than last time. Not one streetlight was working, not one window was undamaged and not one wall as without lots of dirt.

When we arrived at Casper High, everyone was waiting for us. The sat on the wooden benches, or what was left of those, and waved a us. Tucker came to greet us.

"Hey guys! Glad you're safe! And- wait, where's Sam?"

"What? She isn't here? She should have been here before us!" Star said. Lots of people started talking, and Tucker walked up to me.

"What happened?" he whispered.

"I don't think it was a good idea to go back through _that_ portal," I whispered back.

"I thought so. But there was no other way."

"Where do you think she is?"

"Maybe in the park. That's a good place for thinking, especially for her."

"Thanks! I'll go look for her," I told him, and I ran away. In all the commotion, no one noticed. I was running towards the park, when suddenly I started yawning. It was almost morning and I had stayed up all night, doing nothing but running, flying and using up my powers. I decided to walk, to save my strength. Soon, I arrived at the park. Tucker was right, Sam was sitting there, staring at her image in the lake. I walked up to her.

"Whaddya doing here? Everyone is waiting..." I was not very smart to sneak up on her without warning, because I got kicked in my face for an answer.

"Oh, it's just you. Don't sneak up on me again, understand?"

"Y-yes sir!" We stayed silent for a minute.

"But anyway, what were you doing just now? Why didn't you go back to Casper?"

"I... just felt like coming here. It's very calming... Not like I was upset or anything!"

I smiled. "I know," I said, happy to see her having cheered up a bit. She yawned, and looked a little sleepy. _Now that I think about it, she spent her night being tortured by a weird ghost. And she was so full of energy the whole time. I can imagine that she's tired._

"I'm sorry... just a little... tired..." She lost her balance and fell, but I caught her on time. I took her on my back.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm taking you back like this."

"What? Stop, that's embarrassing!"

"You're too tired to walk. Besides, I'm a little used to long nights, so I'm okay, even with you on my back." She didn't talk back, and her breathing calmed down. Her heart started beating a little slower, and I noticed that she fell asleep. I took her back to Casper High like that, and when we arrived a little while later, I noticed that only Tucker was waiting for us.

"Where are the others?"

"Sleeping."

"Aren't you tired?"

"I already slept a bit."

"By the way, you were right about the park."

"Oh yeah. How's Sam? Did something happen?"

"Oh no, nothing happened. She was just really tired, and fell asleep on my back."

"Good. Let's go inside, it's getting chilly." I didn't really agree with him, but that was because of my ice powers. While walking through the hallways, I just blindly followed Tucker, and I wondered where they all slept. We ended up in the gymnasium, and I counted five by five matrasses on the ground, which was 25. I remembered Sam saying that the army had 24 members. With Tucker and Jazz, that was 26.

"Wait a minute... where am I supposed to sleep!?"

"When Sam let you join, she probably had in mind that you could sleep on Jazz's matrass, but no one expected jazz to come back so soon. I'm sorry," Tucker said.

I walked carefully through the matrasses, because everyone else had already fallen asleep, and I installed Sam on one of the two still empty ones.

"So, what're we gonna do now? If you wanna sleep here, then I..."

"It's okay," I interrupted him, "I'll find some other place to sleep." I left the gymnasium. I had a destination in mind; my house. When we were there earlier, I noticed that my parents weren't there. I was curious to where they were, but I figured I could ask someone the next tomorrow. Or actually, today, because it was almost 5 a.m..

I arrived at my house and phased through the door. I climbed up the stairs, heading to my own room. There was some blood stains before my door, but I didn't really care since the enitre house was a mess. For example, the bench in the living room was cut through the middle. I didn't count the many holes in it, and I figured that I couldn't even if I wanted to. So I was to see, when I entered my own room, that everything was still exactly the same as the one in my timeline, just a little dustier. The only difference was a picture of me, on my desk. My parents probably put it there after the other me died, and decided to keep the room exactly as it had always been. At least, that was the only possible explanation. I looked in my closet, and found my pajamas. I changed into them and lay down on my bed. It felt good to be in a familiar room, and with all the changes, I couldn't caal anything I had seen the past few days familiar.


	15. What They Truly Think About You

I woke up from the incoming sunlight. I felt a bit hazy and looked around. My own room, with my own bed, my own desk, my own closet... Nothing out of the ordinary. I stood up and looked in my closet. I picked out a shirt and some pants, and tied my shoes. I was trying to remember what was going on and why I didn't wake up from my alarm, as usual when something on my desk caught my eye. _That's weird... What's this picture doing here?_ Suddenly I realized what it was doing there. _Oh yeah... This is not my room... Or, actually this was my room, but... Oh, whatever..._ I quickly put my jacket on and walked downstairs. The run-down living room was empty.

I wanted to leave the house when I noticed I was hungry... Very hungry. _There wouldn't be..._ I walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Besides some rotten ham, there was nothing. _Damn... I hoped for something better... Well, that means leaving without breakfast._

I left the house and walked over the streets, heading for Casper, but after a minute or so my ghost sense went off. I sighed and looked around. There was no one, so I changed into a ghost and flew a bit over the city. I couldn't see the ghost, but I heard some screams coming from the mall, so I decided to check it out. I was right, because when I phased through the walls of the mall, there were indeed several ghosts. They were terrorizing some people, and they looked like they had fun doing it. My hand sought the Fenton Thermos, but then I realized that I didn't have it. Around that time, the ghosts noticed me, and one shot an ecto-beam at me. I made a shield, and then freezed them with my ice powers. I landed on the ground and looked around the mall. Most stores had stickers with 'Out of Business' on them... All stores, actually. The lamps were all broken, but the sun gave enough light as this time of the day. Despite all these facts, it was pretty lively in the mall. People were sitting together in groups... probably all family. Some also sat in some of the stores, since those weren't used anymore anyway. They had some blankets around them, and they... were looking at me as if I was some kind of monster that was going to kill them.

"Hey you!"

I turned around. A man, about the age of fourty, had stood up. He looked angry. A woman, probably his wife tried to get him to go down. A girl, probably his daughter, was sitting on the ground, crying. Some people started whispering things like 'Does he want to get himself killed?' and 'What a reckless thing to do! He should listen to his wife!'.

"If you're just gonna stand there, then go away! We humans don't want anything to do with your kind! You scum!" He grabbed a nearby stone and threw it at me. I didn't dodge it on purpose. I could handle him, no problem, but then what would happen to those people? They'd get even more afraid of ghosts, and that was exactly the opposite of what was good for them. My wounds would heal fast, anyway.

When he saw that I was still just looking at him, the man got even more angry, as if he _wanted_ me to get mad. Maybe he wanted to be some kind of hero, but without a villain, there couldn't be a hero either.

"Come on! Why're you just standing there! That's why we hate your kind!" He threw another stone at me, but this one missed.

"You're trying me out, right!? You're just testing me! You're testing us all! You're disgusting!" He threw another stone, and I started wondering where he got all those. But then I saw the old planter with the tree standing next to him. It was filled with dirt, but there were a lot of stones above that, and he was throwing those.

Some people noticed that I was standing still, and the sound of whispers filled the room. Before long, a second person started throwing things. I bit my lip. _Can't fight back... Can't run away... Just stay still and bear with this for a while..._ A lot of people followed the first man and soon, things came at me from all directions.

"Wait!" It was the daughter of the man who first started throwing things. _The man who first started throwing things... That's no good... I need a shorter name for him... Like... Wally. Yeah, he looks like a Wally._ Anyway, most people stopped and listened to the little girl.

"Daddy, why are you all throwing things? He's not doing anything, right?" But Wally responded by giving her a slap in her face.

"Summer! Do you even _know_ in what kind of situation we're in!? We're homeless! Because of people like him! What am I saying... people!? Beings! Creatures! Monsters! That's what they are!" He slapped her a few more times. Wally's wife looked away, just like some other people. He just kept slapping here and beating her. But, suddenly, he wanted to slap her again, but his hand didn't reach her face. This was because I had walked up to him, and had grabbed his hands. He tried to pull himself out of my grip, but failed, so he just turned his head around.

"Just what do you think you're doing!?"

"I could ask you the same," I told him. For a moment, his face filled with confusion, but that soon changed into hate and anger. He tried to break free again, but failed. He might have been taller, but I was a lot stronger. Suddenly, I felt something touching my leg. I looked down, and I spotted the girl, Summer was her name, pulling the legs of my suit.

"Is Daddy... A bad person?"

"Don't talk to him! You ungrateful little..."

I sighed. "What do you think? Do you think Wa... I mean, your Daddy is a bad person?" She looked at the ground. "N...no... He hits me when I do something bad, but I think he is just trying to protect me and my Mommy..." I sighed and let go of Wally. Since he had been leaning forward, in an attempt to break free, he fell flat on his face.

"Daddy! Are you alright!?" Wally immediatly stood up and turned around to face me.

"You... you did that on purpose, right!?" He grabbed another stone, but this time his wife stopped him.

"That's enough, Honey." She probably told me to leave, so I flew away. Wally shouted something like 'running away like a coward', but I ignored him. Still, a small sigh left my mouth. _I wonder if there are more people like this... Now that I think about it, there probably are..._ I phased through the wall and landed on the street. I looked around and immediatly changed into my human form, before something like that could happen again. I fainlty heard someone running behind me. His footsteps sounded harder and harder, and when I fianlly decided to turn around, they were already too close to me and somebody crashed into me. I fell to the ground, and he fell above me.

"Hey! Can't you watch out!?" The man stood up and so did I. I took a look at him. _Wait... Wally? Did he chase after me? It's a good thing that I changed back._

"Hey you!" He pointed at me, and his finger almost touched my face. "Did you see one of those evil ghosts come by? He looked like... like... like you, actually..." He came closer to me, and I did a step backwards. "This is kinda weird..."

"I... really don't know what you're talking about. I didn't see a ghost either..." He grabbed my chin, and looked at me from different angles.

"Are you _really_ sure?"

"Y...Yes!"

"Alright. You don't look like a bad dude, so I'll believe you. But watch out! By the way... hey, why don't you help me search for that ghost? Yeah, that looks like a good task for you! To make up for not watching out earlier. Listen, this ghost is completely evil! He attacked us, and made my little daughter cry. Can you believe that!?" _He is completely distorting the truth..._

"A-actually, I don't really have time to help you. I have somewhere to go, you know? So, bye!" And I ran away, before he could say anything else. I figured it was better for me not to get too involved with people like that. So I ran away, heading for Casper High. For real, this time.


	16. An Awkward Meeting With Yourself

"You're late! You'd be here around breakfast! And now everyone's already had lunch!"

"I'm sorry, I overslept," I said. Sam could make such a fuss over the small things. She sighed. "Ask Tucker if we have some leftovers."

I nodded and walked away, in the direction of the janitor's room which Tucker used as his lab. I opened the door and I saw Tucker talking to Jazz, Jazz explaining him something about ectoplasm. They both looked up, but Jazz looked away right after she saw me.

"You're late," Tucker told me.

"That's what Sam said... By the way, do you have some-"

"Don't know. Go look in the cafeteria." And Tucker turned back to his experiment with the ectoplasm Jazz had just told him about.

"How'd you know what I was going to ask?" Tucker didn't answer me, and Jazz still didn't look up from their experiment. I sighed and mumbled a 'thanks'. I left for the cafeteria, and when I got there, I saw Dash and Kwan cleaning up after everyone's lunch. Everyone probably took turns.

"Hey, look who decided to show up! You're late!" Dash said. _Why is everyone saying the same?_

"Is there some food left?"

"Yes, there is," Kwan said. "You can have-"

"It if you do the rest of the cleaning up!" Dash quickly said.

"Isn't that unfair?" Kwan whispered, so quietly that I wouldn't have heard him if it wasn't for my ghost powers and improved ghost hearing.

"Do you want to do it yourself?" Dash asked him. "Hey! You'll get the food if you clean up!"

I sighed and figured there wouldn't be any other way of eating. And since I was starving, I decided to agree with him.

"Sure, whatever," I said.

"See? It works!" Dash said in triomph and walked away with Kwan. I sat down at a table which had plenty of food left on the plates. All the food looked pretty cheap and some was spoiled. I took some that still looked good and ate. It tasted not very good, but still better than I expected.

While I was eating, the doors of the cafeteria opened and someone walked in. I couldn't see who it was since my back was pointing at the door, but I could hear that person walking up to me, with heavy footsteps.

"I see they ditched their chores..." Sam sighed. "I'll get them for this, you'll see."

"Hey," I told her.

"You here too? I didn't notice you at all, sitting there on your own. So? How's the food?"

"Could be better. Can't believe you didn't see me." Sam sat down next to me and took another plate that had still something left and started eating.

"Let me guess. Dash and Kwan left you with the cleaning up, am I right?"

"You hit the bull's eye."

Sam sighed again. "They barely did anything. Want me to go get them?"

"Nah, it's okay." We finished eating and started cleaning up together. When we were finally finished, Sam started talking to me.

"Hey, uhm... I wanted to thank you for last night. When you took me here all the way from the park. So, thanks..."

"Ah, it's no problem."

"Hey, tonight, you can sleep here. Paulina and Star managed to get a new matrass, so you gotta thank them."

"Sure, I'll do that."

We walked together to the court and sat down on one of the wooden benches. We sat there for a while, but we didn't say anything and the mood got kind of gloomy. Sam looked at the ground and I looked at her, most of the time. _What would she be thinking right now?_

"Hey..." she softly said, without lifting her head.

"Yes?"

She lifted her head, and forced a smile on her face, but there still were little tears in her eyes. "I have a place I often have to go, and I was thinking about going now. Wanna tag along?"

"Sure," I said, not only because I was curious, but also because I was a little worried.

"Thanks. But I'll warn you, it's often haunted by ghosts. Don't chicken out when we get there."

I smiled. "Who do you think I am?" I was happy she was back to her nice and bossy self. Sam grabbed her contact device. "Tucker?" "Yes, this is Sam." "I'm going away for a while, and I'm taking Newbie with me." "I want you to make sure no one blows up this place while we're gone." "No, I'm not going there!" "Okay, maybe I am, but don't tell anyone!" "No, I'm sure they're too stupid to figure that out themselves." "I'm not!" "Anyway, we're leaving." "Bye!"

"Ready?" I asked her.

"Ready! Follow me!" She jumped up and walked away, on her own quick pace. I jumped up too and ran up to her. But when I reached her and started walking again, I couldn't keep up with her, so I had to run some parts of the way.

"Hey, Sam, we aren't in a hurry, are we?" She looked behind her and stopped. She waited for me to catch up.

"I'm sorry. I forgot how _slow_ you were."

"It's not that I'm being slow. You just seem like you're in a big hurry, or like you just want to lose me."

"Of course that's not it, idiot! You should know that I don't think like that! Stupid Newbie!"

"I've got a name, you know," I said quietly. She didn't hear me, and I didn't remember if I had wanted her to do so, so I didn't repeat myself. I knew exactly why she called me Newbie anyway, beside the fact that I was the newest recruit.

We continued to walk towards her special place in silence. It was an awkward silence, and I didn't really know if I should break it or not. After a while we finally reached some sort of park, and Sam stopped walking. It was dark, and there was a thick fog.

"Is it always so gloomy in this special place of yours?" I asked Sam.

"No, it's not. I told you it was often haunted by ghosts, remember?"

"So this is the work of a ghost?"

"Yeah, it is... Get your gun ready." I searched for my gun in my backpack, which I was still carrying, when I remembered how I ditched it in the Ghost Zone. I wanted to tell Sam, but she had already entered the park through the main gate. I sighed and followed her. When I got inside the park the fog only seemed to get thicker, and at some point I couldn't see beneath my chest anymore because of the fog. I looked around, but that same fog didn't allow me to look any further than a few inches.

"Sam? Are you here?" I tried asking.

"Yeah, I'm here! It's useless to search for each other in this fog, search for the ghost!" Her voice sounded really close, and I felt relieved. I walked around the strange park for a while. I could hear nothing but my own footsteps, which was pretty weird, because Sam's heavy boots made pretty loud footsteps, which I, of all people, should hear. I shrugged it off and kept walking, searching for the ghost, but I stumbled upon some sort of rock. I tripped and fell flat on my face. The grass was all wet from the fog and I too was pretty wet and dirty. I turned intangible, and the dirt and the water, which I hoped it was, fell on the ground. Suddenly I heard a scream from something that was not human.

"That was a pretty stupid move... That ghost here is practically deaf, so all it hears are loud noises like that one," I heard Sam say. Suddenly, my ghost sense went off, and I turned around. Within the mist I saw two red eyes. I followed my instinct and shot it head-on with an ecto-beam. I heard a scream and the red glowing eyes closed. The fog slowly cleared up. When it cleared up enough for me to see something, I saw a green ghost bug absorbing the mist, while turning from giant to mini size. I made a bowl of my hands and caught it. It looked like it was in pain, and I felt kinda bad. But when it was done clearing up the fog, it opened up its eyes and flew away. I expected Sam to yell at me for letting it go, even though I didn't regret it, but that didn't happen. Oh yeah, I could now look for Sam. I kept turning around until I found her. She was sitting on the ground and I ran up to her.

"So this is where you were all this time. No wonder I didn't hear your footsteps, you were just sitting here." She didn't answer me. I just wanted to ask her why when I noticed she was sitting in front of a stone. When I looked around, there were a lot of stones like that. I figured I also tripped over one of those.

"Sam? What is this place? Why are there so many stones?" She didn't answer again. I looked at the stone she was staring at and read the text on it.

"No way... A graveyard?"

_Daniel Fenton. 03-03-2004*._

_*I don't know the exact date when the portal accident happened, but since it was one month before Mystery Meat, I set it on one month before that episode's original airdate, which is April the third, 2004.  
_


	17. One Mistake Can Ruin Your Life - Part I

**? POV**

"Smile!" I told him, and I made a picture. It kinda failed though, because he forgot to smile.

He sighed. "Okay. I showed you the portal, can we get outta here now? My parents could be back any minute. Besides, they say it doesn't work anyway..."

"C'mon, Danny, a Ghost Zone... Aren't you curious? You gotta check it out," I said, with a big smile on my face, while staring at the portal. He walked up to me and smiled too.

"You know what? You're right! Who knows what kind of awesome supercool things exist on the other side of that portal?" He changed into the white suit I gave him earlier.

"Hang on!" I told him. I walked up to him and removed the sticker of his dad's face on the chest of the suit. "You can't go walking around with _that_ on your chest."

He looked inside the portal, and took a careful step inside. He looked around while walking forward. I smiled as I looked at him, and whispered a 'C'mon, do your best,'. Suddenly, I heard the sound of a button being pressed, and the next thing I knew was a scream. A loud painful scream. I ran to the portal, followed by my friend Tucker.

"DANNY!" I screamed.

"What's going on!? I thought it didn't work!" Tucker asked me. I wasn't able to answer him, though. I was too focused on the sight of my best friend getting hurt because of me. I could clearly see his silhouette in the green light. He was clearly in pain. But the weirdest thing... For a moment, it looked like he was glowing, but then that stopped. As if the portal tried to make him glow, but he rejected it.

"C'mon Danny! Fight against it! Don't let it get you!" I screamed, while trying to convince myself that he would be okay. He clearly heard me, because the little glow that was left disappeard too. The green light filled the whole portal until there was nothing left to see. My eyes filled with tears when I noticed that I couldn't see Danny anymore. I wanted to scream. Scream his name. Call for him. Save him from whatever trouble he was in. But I couldn't. My voice failed me. My body failed me. I could only stand there like I was paralyzed. Suddenly, a foot came out, and a body followed. It was Danny. Some of his hairs had turned white and he was glowing a bit. I ran up to him and caught him, because he was about to fall.

"Danny? Danny, what happened? Danny? Danny, can you hear me? Danny!?"

"...Sam..." his voice told me. It was a very soft sound, so I listened closely. Suddenly everything else seemed to fall still. And at the same time, every little sound sounded so hard, as if my ears were going to burst. But I tried only to focus on the Danny in my hands.

"I'm... sorry... we won't be able to... see the other side, after all..." The tears in my eyes started to fall and I held him even more tight. I pushed him against myself.

"Don't say that Danny! It's gonna be okay!" I said, maybe a little too loud. Tucker ran up to us. I saw that he, too, cried.

"She's right! It's all gonna be okay! You'll see! Tomorrow, everything will be back to the way it was! You know what? We're gonna explore that portal, right now! You wanted to do that, right!?"

"Guys... I'm tired... You think it's okay if I... go to sleep, for now?" At first, I didn't understand what he was trying to say... I felt his heartbeat go down, and I didn't know why. _It's gonna be okay, right? If he sleeps, he'll be okay... Then we can do all sorts of things again..._ He started breathing slowlier. Somehow, it made me think of my grandfather.

"_Hey Sam?"_

"_What's wrong, grandpa?" I asked my grandfather, who was lying in his bed. I sat next to him on the chair. I was kinda nervous, because it was my first time in a hospital, but my parents told me that it was very important that I would see him today. I didn't know why though._

"_Grandpa is... a little tired... He's gonna go to sleep now, okay?" he asked me, very slowly. I nodded. He closed his eyes. The weird machine making weird peeps next to him suddenly stopped peeping. I wasn't sure why, so I decided to wake him up and ask._

"_Grandpa? Hey, grandpa, your machine is... Grandpa, can you hear me? Grandpa, wake up! Come on, why won't you wake up!?" One of the nurses came in._

"_Oh, hello... You must be mister Manson's granddaughter, Samantha. I heard you'd come in today..."_

"_Hey Miss... Why won't grandpa wake up? He just said he was gonna sleep..."_

"_What are you talking about?" The nurse asked me. She walked up to us and took a look at grandpa. Next thing, she started screaming really loud._

My eyes widened as I remembered what happened 10 years ago. I started shaking Danny.

"Wait! Stop! No! It's not okay! It's NOT okay to go to sleep! You have to stay awake! You hear that!? You HAVE to stay awake!" With his chest pressed againt mine, I had been able to feel his heartbeat until now. but that suddenly stopped. I stood there, paralyzed. he slowly let him go.

"Danny?" I started crying even harder. "Hey, Danny, open your eyes... Come on, stand..." I weakened my grip on him, and he fell on the ground. My legs felt heavy, and I was not able to keep standing. I fell on my knees, next to my best friend. All I felt I could do was scream. I screamed and screamed and screamed. It wasn't long before the first parents came down. And after a while there were too many people to count. Me, Tucker, Danny's parents, his sister Jazz, my parents, Tucker's parents, doctors, policemen... But not Danny. I just sat there, crying, and not paying attention to anything that happened around me.

_It's... my fault... I told him to go in..._

_I... killed him..._

**Danny POV**

I just stared at the grave. I stared at Sam, who was sitting there, also staring at the grave. I swallowed a time and sighed.

"What are we looking at right now?"

"Oh!" She finally turned her head around. "I'm sorry, you don't know about this... It's a friend of ours who's dead... He..." She started speaking with more and more trouble, so I decided to cut her off.

"Oh, yeah, Tucker told me about that..." I rubbed my neck in nervousness. "He was... Jazz's brother, right? Well, I think I'm going back, so, bye..." I turned around to walk away, but something stopped me. Tears. The sound of her tears. I turned around, and saw that she had buried her face in her chest, and was pressing her legs even closer to herself.

"Hey, c'mon, what's this? You are the one who wanted to come here! If all you're gonna do, we'd better go!" I grabbed her arm and tried to walk away with her, but she pulled her arm back.

"You... You're right... You know, I promised myself that I would never cry in front of this place... That I would get stronger... But I'm... so weak... Ever since ghosts started showing up in Amity Park, I've hated them... I wanted to fight them, to destroy them... To avenge him... But someone like me can't do something like that! I'm-"

"Stop! You're not weak! You're so incredibly strong! You keep fighting against a power that's so much greater than yours, and you're doing such a good job! Because of you, the people here can hope again! They can hope that someday the ghosts will vanish! Can't you see that!?"

"I..."

"We're outta here!" I pulled her along as I walked away from the graveyard. She quietly let me pull her and we walked together. After a while, I felt like I could let her go, so I stopped pulling her arm. She stopped walking.

"Hey! Don't stop! Walk by yourself! You can do that, right?" It was kinda hard to be so strict with her, but it really felt like she needed that. Besides, I hated to see her so sad and upset.

When Sam didn't walk by herself I sighed and grabbed her arm. Her walked away, but she didn't follow me anymore.

"Oh come on! Why can't you-"

"I've been wondering... Why did I want to go to _that place_ anyway?"

"Wasn't it because you wanted to look at the grave?"

"Maybe... Or maybe, I wanted to sort out my thoughts. Maybe I wanted to tell him something, even though I don't know what. Or, maybe..." She paused for a while, "maybe I just wanted proof that he's really dead..." She said, while raising her head, and looking me right in the eye.


	18. Am I Just In Everyone's Way?

"Maybe I just needed proof that he's really dead..."

"Proof that he's..." I paused for a moment. "Oh, come on! Of course he is! Weren't you there when he died? What did you think, that he came back to life to haunt you?"

"Of... Of course I didn't..." She forced a little smile on her face.

"That's good. Now, come on, everyone's waiting," I said, and I grabbed her arm and pulled her along, but she soon freed herself from my grip.

"I can walk by myself, you know?" she said. I couldn't help but smile, now that she was back to herself. She started walking. I waited for her to pass me and then followed her.

It was getting pretty busy in the auditorium. The moment we returned, Sam told everyone to gather up here, and disappeard right after. Now, everyone was there waiting for her. It was noisy, as people didn't know where their leader was.

"SILENCE!" Everyone turned around and looked at the doors, which had just been swung open, and Sam was standing in the dooropening.

"Leader! Where were-"

"I thought I told everyone to be SILENT!" She screamed. People got scared, and all the little conversations that were still going on stopped at once.

"That's better." Sam walked up to the stage, Tucker following her with a nervous face, and someone turned the lights off, and the spots on.

"Tucker?" Sam asked. He entered the spotlight.

"Well, hello everyone! You know me, Tucker, the inventor of this ghost stuff... As some of you may know, last month I started an investigation, and I finally got some results that may be worth something for us. I believe everyone knows about the prisons inside the Ghost Zone. One prison for ghosts, and one prison for humans. But, today I received news from a trustworthy source that there should be a _third_ prison, hidden somewhere in the Ghost Zone," he said, and right after he said _third_, people started talking and whispering. I totally understood them though. _A third prison... I wonder what kinds of people they keep there..._

"SHUT UP EVERYONE!" Sam stated once more. She pushed Tucker out of the spotlight.

"That's right, there might be a third one of those horrible prisons. We don't know what kinds of things they keep there, so I was thinking on going there to find out. t's gonna be dangerous, so I spent a while deciding who was going with me. We're gonna have another team of four, and the others need to stay here to patrol the city and make sure the ghosts here don't notice our absence. I was thinking of taking of taking Dash..."

Dash entered the stage.

"...And Kwan..."

Kwan followed after his friend. _Dash and Kwan? And I'm probably gonna be the next..._

"...And Valerie." _Heh? She's not going to choose me... But why? I thought I kinda proved myself last smile by saving them and Jazz, and beating all those ghosts..._

"Eh, Sam?" I tried. She looked at me.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing, I just thought..."

"Thought what? That I was gonna take you with me again? I'm sorry, but I don't remember you doing anything. So I chose Kwan instead. He might not have much brains, but he has muscle. Besides, no one needs brains under _my_ command. Well, anyway, we're leaving guys!" She walked away, just like that, and the others followed her. I stood there, as she passed me, and I didn't say or do anything. The others also left, and at the end, I was the only one left, still not having moved an inch.

"So I... didn't do anything, huh?" I told myself. I sighed and walked away. I walked through the hallways and left Casper. I walked over the streets, staring at the ground. Sam and the others were nowhere to be found. I felt disappointed, and a bit bored. I gave a kick against a little stone. Then, I heard a growl behind me. I turned, only to face a giant ghost.

"Ah, I might as well make myself useful if I have to stay here," I said, probably to myself. I looked around and when I decided the coast was clear, I changed into my ghost half. I flew in the sky, about ten feet above the ghost, and it appeared he wasn't able to fly. It wasn't much of a problem for him though, considering his huge size. I loaded an ecto-beam in my hand, and was about to shoot it when... the ghost started screaming really loudly.

"What's this? I didn't do anything yet, did I?"

"Take that, you ghost scum!" sounded from behind the ghost. I flew to the other side, and I saw Paulina shooting at the ghost with her ecto-gun. The ghost stopped screaming and turned around to her, and it looked really angry. Paulina panicked and started shooting harder, but it appeared to have no effect. It lifted its hand (I was surprised it had one, since it looked like a pile of dirt with a face) and knocked Paulina away. She hit the building behind her and fell to the ground.

"Paulina..." I said softly, and flew up to her. I saw her eyes getting bigger as the ghost wanted to give her another punch, but I reached her in time and stopped the ghost's hand. It was really heavy, and I wasn't able to push it back, so I decided to freeze it instead. When it was all frozen, I let its hand go and turned around to face the still terrified Paulina.

"Are... you okay?" I asked her. She slowly nodded.

"You... saved me, didn't you?"

"Well, I suppose you could say that..." I said while rubbing my neck.

"So, you're... a good ghost?" _Where have I heard this before?_

"I think I am, yeah," I slowly said. It was Paulina's meeting with my ghost half all over again. Last time, she fell in love with Danny Phantom. I felt flattered in the beginning, but that feeling kind of disappeared over time. I didn't really know why, but I thought it was because my feelings for Paulina also disappeared.

There was some kind of cracking sound behind of me.

_Of course, I don't know if she'd fall in love with Phantom again. In this timeline, she really hates ghosts..._

There was another crack.

_But, it is the same person after all. Even though she fights ghosts, she's still Paulina._

Paulina's eyes grew wider and her mouth was a little open. I heard some peeps from her mouth, as if she wanted to say something, but the words wouldn't come out.

_She... is still Paulina, right? I mean, the Paulina I know doesn't make a ponytail in her hair. She doesn't walk around without her make-up and she wouldn't scream something like 'Take that, you ghost scum!'._

The ghost!

I turned around and looked at the ghost, which was about to break free from my ice. There was a crack, and then another one, and then a lot of cracks until the ice scattered in about a thousand pieces. I took a protective stance before Paulina.

"Run!" I told her. She stood up, since she was still sitting on the ground from when she got tossed against the building, and nodded.

"Wait for me. I'm gonna get help."

I could already see her getting someone from the army. But then that someone wouldn't really like a ghost like me, and I could see myself getting captured again.

"Not necessary!" Afraid that she wouldn't listen to me, I decided to finish it quickly. I let out my ghostly wail at the monster, which started screaming in pain. It looked like he was getting smaller. Yes, he really was getting smaller. He kept shrinking while I screamed and when I finally was ready, the ghost wasn't bigger than the palm of my hand. He started to do something that was kinda like crying and I actually felt a bit sorry for him. I wanted to let it go but Paulina walked up to it and caught in one of the ghost-proof nets she was wearing.

"So! All done! Thanks for helping me. I don't think I could have done it on my own. I'm Paulina. What's your name?"

"Danny... Phantom."

"That's a nice name. Hey, what about joining our rebel army?"

"Wh-what? But that's an anti-ghost army! Don't you think everybody would be against it?"

"I think most would, but I think we could use a good ghost like you. You're strong, and you probably know a lot about the ghost zone and the ghost king."

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't know that much about either of those."

"Too bad. But anyway, you can fight against the ghosts. They'll trust you, since you're one of them, so we could trick them into all kinds of things."

"Maybe other ghosts will trust me, but I don't think your friends would."

She sighed. "I know. It was just an idea, though. You're really cool for a ghost."

"Thanks," I said while smiling. But then, I heard something beeping.

"Sorry, have to take this," Paulina said and reached for her contact device. "What's it?"

"It's... it's terrible!" I could recognize Jazz's voice from the other side. "Me and Tucker... we just lost contact with Sam and the others! We can't reach them! Something terrible must've happened! I'm so worried! They could even... they could even be killed!"


	19. Trust Is The Most Important Of All

"I'm so worried! They could even... they could even be killed!" Jazz screamed. Then it was silent for a moment. Paulina didn't say anything, and neither did I. How could I? It was practically _my_ fault that Sam was in danger. Again.

"Oh, come on, do you know what you're saying!?" Paulina suddenly asked my sister.

"B-but, I mean, it's possible..."

"It's Sam! Our leader! Do you really think a simple investigation mission like that could trouble her? She probably just lost her contact device! I'm gonna cut it off now, I've got things to do," she said and turned her contact device off. Then Paulina sighed. "That Jazz... She's really helpful to us, but she can be so overprotective sometimes..."

"But doesn't it trouble you?" I asked her.

"What's troubling me?"

"Well, maybe there's really something going on there. The Ghost Zone is a really dangerous place, you know," I told her.

"Mmm... I wouldn't know that, since I've never been there myself, but in an organization like ours, trust in each other is more important than anything. I really understand Jazz's point of view, but if we don't trust in each other, what would become of us? This is not child's play, this is a real fight. We don't have the time to keep walking in each other's way just because we are a little worried. We need to focus on our own things. Isn't that right?"

"I guess that's right, but..." _But I can't just let it go... If she's in danger it's all my fault... I don't want to be in her way, but... but I have to help her!_

"I'm sorry, I have to go," I said to Paulina and flew away without waiting for her answer. When I arrived at my house, I just phased through the door. I noticed no one was home and phased through the floor, to the basement.

"Well, here goes nothing..." I said, and opened the portal. My dad's passwords were always the same... The yellow-and-black door opened, and I flew in the green mess behind it. I arrived in the Ghost Zone and looked around. Nothing abnormal. Far away, I could see the main island, and I decided to head in that direction. I was almost there when I heard someone screaming.

"HEY YOU!" it sounded. I immediatly turned around searching for the possible danger. But I didn't see anything, so I turned around again, mumbling something like 'Must have been my imagination.' But as sound as I did that, a giant blue face appeared before me.

"Boo!" In the heat of the moment, I started screaming and jumped backwards. Or rather flew, because I still hadn't landed. Doing that, I found out that the face was not giant, just very, very close. It was actually a normal-sized blue face, that looked a little too familiar.

"Oh, it's just you... Box Ghost."

"It's not JUST me! Aren't you happy to see your good friend again after such a long time!?"

"We're friends?"

"You don't consider me a friend!?" he asked me, his face looking really shocked.

"Even if I did, I saw you yesterday. That's not exactly a long time ago."

"I'm really, really shocked right now!"

"I can see it. Listen, I don't have much time, there's something I need to do."

"Should I help?"

"What?"

"Help! Help you! I still need to pay you back! For yesterday!"

"Actually, that doesn't sound so bad. You're really gonna help me?"

"Sure I am! So, what're doing?"

"Do you happen to know something about a _third_ prison? Besides the ones we were yesterday?"

"You don't wanna get involved with THAT, as long as you want to live to see the next tomorrow!"

"Why not?" _I knew it! Sam's in danger! Wait for me, I'll be there soon!_

"It's... it's an underground prison... And the man that they keep there... He's dangerous! I've never seen him myself, but he's so dangerous that they couldn't keep him in the normal prison! They had to build a super-secured one just for him!"

"So there's only one prisoner there?"

"No one has ever seen him! Not even the guards for that prison! Only the great king himself gets to take a look at his face!"

"And you really don't know anything about him?"

"Just that he's very, very dangerous."

"Well, I'm still going there. I guess you don't feel like helping me anymore."

"Well, that's..."

"It's okay. There was no need to pay me back from the start. Could you tell me where it is?"

"T-that way..." he said and pointed in the right direction with his finger.

I smiled. "Thanks." And I flew away. As fast as I could, I headed for the place Sam was. The place where that very dangerous person was locked up. Until... I realized I didn't know what the prison looked like. The Box Ghost had told me it was underground, but how was I supposed to know where that was? I stopped to think.

"Guess I just have to ask someone again..."

"WATCH OUT!" it sounded from behind me. I didn't react at first, but then I heard something coming closer from behind me, and I realized it was me he had spoken to. I turned around, but I was too late, and a big, blue, thing crashed into me, making both of us fall to the ground.

"Will you watch where you're- Box Ghost?"

The Box Ghost got up. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't just let you go..."

"I thought you weren't coming with me..."

"But you can't go alone! Is there really nothing that can change your mind?"

"There isn't."

"Then I have to come to! Without the help of a powerful ghost like me, _the _Box Ghost, they'll get you again, and then it's over!"

"Thanks a lot. And you don't just happen to know where _exactly_ the prison is, because I don't."

"I do! Follow me!" He flew away, and I followed him. He was flying a lot slower than I did before he came, but I knew he was already at top-speed, so I decided not to say anything. When we came in an area with less buildings than before, he stopped. He pointed at a small building. It was made of stone, which made it really stand out, despite his size, because all the other buildings were made of wood, or even worse. The little building had one big door made of steel.

"There it is. Like I said, most of the prison is underground."

"Even though there is only one prisoner inside? That proves just how much of a threat that king considers him."

"Yeah, that's right! He's really, really dangerous, and I don't think we should-"

"It's okay if you want to go home, I'll manage from here on."

"What are you saying? Aren't we a team?"

"A team? What are you talking about?"

"You're breaking my heart!" He grabbed his chest as if his heart suddenly started hurting really bad, and then he pretended to pass out. The two guards standing at the steel door noticed it and looked at us, as if we were some sort of street act. I made a silly smile, and then grabbed the Box Ghost.

"Wake up, now!" I whispered. He opened his eyes, and stood up. He saw the guards staring at us, and he started panicking.

"Will you act normal?" I whispered again, but he didn't hear me. He just stared back at the guards, and then suddenly he passed out, for real this time.

"You idiot," I whispered again, so the guards wouldn't hear me. I grabbed him and took him to the first wall I saw and we sat down behind it. Or, rather, I sat and he was just lying down next to me. _Maybe I better contact someone..._ I changed into my human form and grabbed my contact device from my backpack. I put it on and tried talking to it, but it just gave a weird noise.

"Weird... something around here must be messing with the connection... That's probably also why we lost connection with Sam... I'm so stupid!" Then, I heard a scream next to me. I looked in the direction of the sound. The Box Ghost had woken up, probably from the noise from the contact device.

"Wh-who are you? Where's Phantom?"


	20. Can I Call You Danny?

"I'm asking you where Phantom is!" The panic could clearly be heard in his voice. He opened his mouth again to say something, but I put my hands on it and he started mumbling.

"Just shut up for a second..." I said softly, but in the end it sounded scarier than I had planned. I slowly let him go, and took a look at the guards. They weren't paying attention to the two idiots behind the wall anymore, and I sighed in relief. I looked at the Box Ghost.

"Okay, you can speak again."

"Wh-wh-what is going on? Who are you?"

"You really wanna know?" He nodded. I grinned. "I'm a monster that eats people's souls. I just absorbed the soul of your friend while you were asleep and I need you to help me get in that building."

"A-and if I do that you won't eat me, right?"

"Wait, you actually believed me?"

"You mean it was a lie?"

"Of course it was, you idiot!" I hit him on the head.

"Ow! You hit me! Who do you think you are, hitting me on the head?"

"It's me! Danny Phantom! But don't tell anyone, especially not anyone working under that king."

"But then... And you... And I..."

"Shut up! I'll explain everything later, okay? Now, to get into that building..."

"But, you're... Are you a human?"

"Yeah, yeah... I told you, I'll explain it later."

"But... can't humans pass through stuff in the Ghost Zone?"

"Of course they..." I was silent for a moment. _Humans can pass through stuff in the Ghost Zone..._ I slapped myself in my face. "Of course they can! I'm so stupid! Wait here for a moment, okay?" I turned intangible and phased through the wall. I walked up to the building without being seen by the guards. After I turned at the corner, I turned visible again. I turned at another corner and ended up behind the building.

"Okay, here it goes!" I tried putting my hand through the wall, but instead of going through, it got shocked.

"Ow!"

"Give it up, there's a shield around this building. Anything that tries to go in gets a shock."

I looked around. There were two guys sitting on a few boxes behind me. One had blonde hair, and the other black hair. Both of them looked really tough.

"Dash? Kwan? Where are Sam and Valerie?"

"Dunno. We split up. But that aside," Dash stood up and walked up to me, "what are _you_ doing here?" He started picking my face, so I pushed his hand away.

"Please leave me alone for now."

"Hey, I'm trying to give you a serious piece of advice! Leave before Sam sees you, or you'll be dead. Being here goes against her orders, remember?"

"I know... But when we lost connection with you, I was just so worried..."

"Is that so?" I heard someone saying. I looked up, and Dash did the same.

"Leader? Back already?" Dash said nervously.

"Does it surprise you? We _did_ tell you to wait here, while we'd get the disconnecter."

"Disconnecter?" I interrupted them.

"For the shield! But forget that, why are you here in the first place?"

"Well, this shield thing is messing with the connection of our contact devices, so-"

"Really?" Sam checked her contact device. "It's true! I hadn't noticed!"

"I guess you want me to leave, don't you?"

"No. You stay."

"...What?"

"I mean, I can't let you go back all by yourself right? It's safer here! Well, actually it's not, but I mean, when you're with other people..." Sam stuttered.

"You're not making any sense..." I slowly said, but she didn't hear me.

"... Anyway, that's why it's better to stay here," she said a little too confidently.

"Well, I don't mind..."

"Okay guys, enough delay. Let's get to work!"

"Oh yeah, I wanted to ask about that... How are we gonna get in anyway?" I asked them.

"It's this little thing," Sam said while showing me the disconnecter, "it disconnects the molecules in the shield from each other. The shield will get unstable, and not able to maintain its form. Resulting, it will fall apart, and we'll be able to pass through. But, and I'm talking to everyone now, you have to watch out. Once we connect this thing it will only work for thirty seconds, so if you don't make it, we'll have to leave you behind. That's all, let's go!"

She put the disconnecter against the wall. It started making little beeps and noises. Then, there was a big shock, and the green shield, invisible before, started appearing. Next to where Sam had put the disconnecter, there was a hole growing bigger. When it reached the ground, Sam pulled the disconnecter away.

"Making it any bigger will be dangerous. You'll have to crawl through this. Come on! 25... 24..." Everyone was looking at me, so I figured I had to go first. I walked through the wall. I looked left and right.

"Okay, coast clear! You can come!" I continued counting in my head. _11... 10... 9..._ Sam walked through the wall. _6... 5... 4..._ I suddenly heard a scream. It was Valerie.

"What's going on?!" I screamed. Then, Sam put her hand on my mouth.

"Quiet, they'll hear you. Valerie must be stuck in the middle of the shield.

"But that wasn't thirty seconds yet!"

"It's thirty seconds _at best_. Forgot to mention that last thing."

"Don't forget things like that," I whispered, because I was afraid the guards at the door would hear us if one of us screamed again.

"Guys, pull Val out! Don't push her this way, just make sure she's safe! The two of us will be alright!" _It's no use being quiet anymore..._ _This isn't going to end well at all..._ The screaming and the noises stopped.

"Sounds like they got her out. Let's go."

"Wait a minute... Be silent for a moment..." I listened very carefully.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing... I just... thought I heard something. Anyway, where are we supposed to go now?" I looked around the room. It was a big grey room full of spider webs. It was really cold. The only things standing out in the room were the entrance door and another small, wooden door.

"Isn't it obvious? The big door!"

"But isn't that the entrance?"

"Oh yeah... Okay, let's go to the small door!" Her voice echoed through the room. We walked up to the small wooden door, and she opened it. I expected to find some scary room, maybe a little like the torture room in the human prison, but it was just a staircase. It went down, so whatever was at the end had to be underground. Sam walked down and I followed her. The staircase was going round and round, counter-clockwise. There seemed no end to it, and I almost felt like counting all the steps. After a while, it was getting darker and darker, until the point where I could not see Sam anymore and clung to the wall just to make sure not to fall off the stairs.

"Hey, Sam... Let's stop for a moment... I can't see anything..."

"Yeah, maybe you're right... Okay, we're gonna rest for a few minutes. I stopped hearing her footsteps and judging from the sounds I heard afterwards, I figured she sat down. I searched for her with my hand and sat down where I hoped was next to her.

"Hey..." her voice slowly said.

"What?"

"Can I... call you Danny?"

"Wait... wasn't that your friend who..."

"Yes, he was. But... I need to get over that... And this might just be a good start..." I couldn't see her face, but her voice was shaking, so I figured she was crying. With my hand I searched for her in the dark. I found her arm, and moved my hand up to her face. She really was crying, so I wiped the tears off her face.

"I'm... sorry. I shouldn't cry just after I said I'd get over it. Hey, let's make a promise!" I felt her hand against my arm, and then she grabbed my pink with hers.

"Pinky swear. I will promise never to cry again."

"And I will promise... I promise I'll help everyone to regain their freedom and everything that has been stolen away. And with everyone I mean especially you."

"Thanks." She stood up. "Let's go."

I stood up, too. "Yeah."

We continued walking for a while. I was sure we passed the ten thousandth step a long time ago. Still, we walked on.

"Hey, Sam," I started.

"Is something wrong?"

"Back when you said I wasn't of any help... Did you mean that?"

"Well, I..."

"Be honest."

"Of course not... You were the most of help of everyone... It's just that I was afraid to, well, you know, be around you... I was afraid that you'd remind me of _him_ again, so I wanted to avoid you. But that's ridiculous, I know. So, now I'm gonna be strong and accept the fact that... that he's dead..."

_Sam..._

After another while we finally reached the ground. I was so tired of walking down the stairs that I didn't even feel my legs anymore, but I didn't care. The space where the stairs ended was lit by candles hanging on the wall, so we could see again, after my eyes got used to the light I hadn't seen in over an hour. There was a round room, and there was one hallway leading to more darkness. But there were candles hanging on the walls the entire way, so I figured it wouldn't get dark again. We started walking down the hallway.

"Hey, why do you think this building is so big?" I heard Sam asking.

"Don't know. I think ghosts could fly down those stairs from just now in a few minutes, so maybe it's to keep people down."

We continued walking.

"What do you think Dash and the others are doing now?" I asked Sam.

"I don't know. It must be night, even though it doesn't get dark in the Ghost Zone. Maybe they found a hiding place and went to sleep."

"You think so?"

"I told you, I don't know."

We walked on.

"Hey, look there!" I said, pointing in the darkness in front of us.

"What is it?"

"I think I can see the end of the hallway." We walked a little faster, and I was indeed right. At the end of the hallway, there was a wall in front of us. Or actually, it was not a wall, it was a prison cell. The light didn't reach far into the cell, so it was pretty dark at the back, but I could clearly see the silhouette of a man, sitting in the back. His arms and legs were chained to the walls around him, and he looked pretty lifeless. He looked up, and I saw his glowing red eyes. They immediatly lightened up the area around him. His long grey hair was hanging in his face, and his black suit was full of cuts and holes.

"My, my, it's been a while since I've had visitors..." His voice sounded old and tired, and it cracked a little.

_No..._

"...Way"

"What's wrong?" Sam asked.

"You're... Vlad..."


	21. One Mistake Can Ruin Your Life - Part II

**? POV**

(A.N. Yes, it's Sam again... But to make sure everyone understands it's another flashback, I decided to use the '?' again)

It was a rainy day. Or, at least I think it was. I mean, how could I pay attention to the weather in a situation like that?

I was standing there. Just standing. To make sure I didn't make another fault. A man in black was holding speeches to a crowd in which I was standing. I didn't listen to them. I couldn't listen to them. Suddenly, the sounds I wasn't listening to stopped. Four men carrying a coffin entered the field we were standing. I took my eyes off them. I didn't want to look. I couldn't look. Then, they put the coffin down in a hole and one of the four men, Jack Fenton, grabbed a shovel and started burrying it. And that's when I broke. I started crying harder and harder. I burried my hands in my face and fell to my knees.

"I'm sorry..." I whispered slowly. Then, I felt a hand on my shoulder. For a split second, I felt a shred of hope. But my hope was broken again. I turned my head around and saw my grandmother. She said nothing, but she looked at me. And for once, I couldn't tell what her eyes said. For once, I had no idea what she was trying to tell me.

Mr. Fenton was ready burrying the coffin. The man in black started speaking again. I stood up and dried my tears. My knees were all dirty from the mud. And I really started listening to his words. I had gotten curious to what he had to say about my best friend. Well, my best friend? I couldn't say that anymore. Not after what I had done. It was something that could never be forgiven.

"...and with this he will never fade away from our minds, nor from our hearts. May your soul rest in peace." The people started clapping. I went along with the flow, and so my hands clapped too. As if it was very normal, my hands clapped as long as the other people did.

A while later, everyone was talking to each other. I was standing on the sidelines, watching them. I didn't feel like getting in a conversation. Today it was exaclty one week since my world fell apart. I had talked to the school psycologist every day, but it didn't seem to help. I was thinking about quitting my sessions with her. I didn't need someone to comfort me. O rather, someone like me didn't deserve someone to be comforted by. If I hadn't told him to...

"Sammykins!" I looked up. My father and mother were standing in front of me.

"We're leaving. This gloomy mood doesn't fit me after all," my mother told me.

"Oh, I see... I was thinking it fit pretty well..."

"Oh, stop that, will you?" My mother grabbed my wrist. Out of instinct, I pulled my wrist back.

"Don't touch me..."

"Samantha, what are you saying? Let's go."

"No... I'll... stay here for a while longer... You go on ahead..." I wanted to be angry with them, yell at them, scream and cry, but I felt like I couldn't. They nodded and went on ahead, mentioning something about taking care of myself and not coming home too late. I sat down in the dirt and buried my hands in my face. Once again, I felt like a horrible person.

The next day.

No matter how many times I had been here, I always felt that same nervosity. Ms. Parker, our school psycologist for the time being, hadn't arrived yet, and I was sitting alone in the room that I knew so well, but was still so afraid of.

"I'm sorry. Did you have to wait long?" Ms. Parker asked as she entered the room. I looked at her, and then at the ground. I didn't say anything. What was I doing here again? What purpose did talking to this woman who knew nothing serve? I wasn't going to get him back by talking to her. I wasn't going to forget what happened by talking to her. I wasn't going to be able to forgive myself by talking to her.

"Hey..." I felt her hand on my shoulder. I looked up.

"Did you have to wait long?"

"No, I only just cam here too," I lied. To be honest, I had been waiting here for almost half an hour. I lied to Mr. Lancer about the time of my appointment to escape class a little earlier. I did it without thinking about the consequences, and I was sure he'd expect me to be back any minute now. Then the door opened. It was Mr. Lancer.

"Oh, hello Ms. Parker," he started. He looked at me. "I was wondering how much longer Ms. Manson would be occupied, what we're discussing now in my class is pretty important, so..."

"I'm sorry Mr. Lancer. You're going to have to wait a little longer. We aren't done talking yet, so I'll keep her here a little longer," Ms. Parker said with a smile. Mr. Lancer's face turned all red, he mumbled something I couldn't hear and left the room. Mr. Parker turned around and faced me.

"Don't lie to other people, okay?"

"I'm sorry..." I said in a little voice. She sat down behind her desk.

"So, how was the funeral? That was yesterday, right?"

"Yes, that's right... And it was... Just..."

"Just what?"

"Nothing..."

"I see..." she looked at the ceiling for a moment. "Want me to tell you a story?"

"A story?"

"When I was about your age, I lived alone with my father. We lived in a single-room appartment. We weren't very rich, but we were happy. My mother wasn't there. She left when I was a little kid. I don't know where she went, but I've been alone with my father ever since. He was always nice to me, and he raised me to be a good girl. I loved him very much. One day, I was alone in my room. It was very late, and I don't know why I was still awake. My father was already asleep on the couch, so I snuck into the living room. I don't remember why, but it was really cold, and I remember the urge to warm myself. It was too expensive to turn on the heater, so I grabbed a few candles and took them to my room. I put them next to my bed and lit them, one by one. I went back to sleep after that. I woke up a few hours later from the heat and the noise. One of the candles had fallen to the ground, and our house was on fire. The firemen were outside, trying to break open my window. They later saved me, and I continued to watch the incident from outside. There was no window leading to the living room, where my father was, so they were trying to put out the fire from my room and then move to the living room. It all went very slowly, and they didn't reach my father until the next morning. And when the fire was put out, they found my father's corpse. He had been burned alive..."

"That's..."

"Back then, I was convinced that it was my fault that he died. But, you know, I've had a lot of time to think about it. I don't think that my father would want me to be so sad. I'm sure he'd forgive me if he could. When someone dies, it's the job of that person's friends and family to live on and continue with their lifes without being drawn into despair. That's why I decided to help people who went through the same experiences as myself. And that's how I ended up here."

_That's pretty amazing... I wish I had the power to think like that..._


	22. The Monster Behind The Bars

"No way..." My mouth was just repeating those words by itself, over and over.

"No way..."

"No way..."

"No way..."

What was Vlad doing here? Why was he captured and locked up in some weird underground cell? It didn't make sense. To be honest, I had thought about who could have been the mysterious king several times, and everytime Vlad crossed my mind. To be honest, I had secretly started believing that Vlad was the king. To be honest, I had hoped it was him. Vlad, was strong. Stronger than other ghosts. But I could handle him. That's why I hoped it was him. If it was not him, _no_, if it was someone far stronger, strong enough to reduce Vlad to a state like this, how was I gonna handle him? How would I save Sam, Tucker, Jazz and all the others? Really, Vlad looked like he had just gotten twenty years older. His usual tidy black suit was full of cuts and holes, and it probably hadn't been changed in weeks. His hair, usually tied together in a ponytail, was hanging all over his face.

"Danny? Danny? Danny?! Hello!?" Sam started shaking me. I was just staring into Vlad's cell. Of course, Vlad looked a little surprised I knew his name.

"DANNY!" A loud scream brought me back and I looked at the person who just made it, which was Sam, of course. I just wanted to ask her what was wrong when Vlad did something - I didn't know, but it made a loud noise that I didn't really recognize. I immediately looked his way, but it turned out he only rattled a little with his shackles.

"I'm sorry. These things are just a little uncomfortable," his voice cracked, but it sounded as sinister as ever. His eyes were still glowing red, like they did in his ghost form. I figured it was necessary for them to glow, because the closest lamp was over ten feet away, and without the little light each of them gave, it would have been pitch black in his cell.

"But... I'm surprised." He looked at me again, while he continued his story. "You seem to know me very well, even though I do not recall ever seeing you before."

"That's right, what's going on?" Sam asked me. Of course, Sam had never seen Vlad before.

"Oh, your girlfriend doesn't know me? Then allow me to formaly introduce myself. My name is Vlad Masters."

"My name is Sam. Sam Manson. Are you a... human?"

He grinned. "Yes, indeed I am. Do I look like something else?"

Before Sam could say 'no', I spoke. "Don't think you can fool us. I know all about you."

"Oh, I had almost forgotten about you. And don't worry, I'm not trying to fool anyone." I gave him a warning expression. "I haven't even asked your name yet," he continued, "we _were_ introducing ourselves after all."

I sighed. "I'm Danny Fen-" I stopped just in time. What if I had told him my last name was Fenton? Vlad was my parent's college friend, he would know about me the moment I told him my name. And that was not all. Sam was standing next to me. If there was anything I couldn't tell her, it was my real identity. She would snap. And how would I explain why I was alive? Would I tell her I had come back to life? Even a three-year-old could see through a lie like that. No, I couldn't possibly tell her who I was.

"Danny Fen? Is that it? Are you sure there isn't anything after that?" he asked as if he knew what I was thinking. I looked at Sam. Her eyes were also begging for an answer.

"Erm..." What should I do? What should I say? Think, Fenton, think! What last name starts with 'Fen'?

"Danny Phantom! My name is Danny Phantom!" Smart move... I guess I really couldn't come up with anything better. Well, at least I'm saved... For now. Or so I hope.

"Phantom?" Vlad asked, as if he saw through my excuse right away. Okay, Phantom was clearly a ghost name, but still... He didn't know me or my alter ego yet... He couldn't have heard that name before.

"Y-yeah..."

"Hmm... No, I was right. Never seen you before." _Oh my gosh, I'm so incredibly saved! I'm probably REALLY lucky right now!_

But Sam's face frowned a bit. "Phantom? That sounds a little like a ghost...-"

"That's a complete coincidence!" I yelled, before she could finish her sentence, assuming that she wasn't already finished. After all, if that wasn't the whole sentence, then I really didn't want to know what would have come after that.

"Anyway," Sam continued, "why did they lock you up here? If you're just a human, then why not lock you up with the rest of us? Why design this specially well-guarded place, just for one person?" Sam wanted to walk to the door of his cell, but I stopped her.

"Because he is on a different level from the others. If you let your guard down even once, you're done for it. Biologically, this guy's a human. Well, at least for now. But I think that he might be even less humane than all those ghosts we encountered before."

"My, my, those are some pretty big words. Are you sure you shouldn't watch your tongue a bit more? If you're not careful, it will bring you in danger..."

"You're one to talk. Look at the condition you're in." He said nothing for a while, and neither did I. It looked like Sam didn't know what to say either. After a while, I spoke up.

"Come on, we're leaving." I grabbed her hand, and pulled her along as I walked away.

"Wait..." Sam said. I stopped and turned around.

"Why wait?"

"We can't just leave him there... I don't know what your connection is to him, but he's a human, like us. And it's our job to save all the humans from the ghosts. That's why we formed a rebel army. We have to save him." I was stunned. Did she even listen to a single word I said? Vlad was evil, and if we saved him, we would do something to Sam and the others for sure.

"Well, if you're so determined to help me, I _would_ like some saving here," he said.

"Are you saying you can't get out on your own?" Oh, how I enjoyed saying that. But I had to be serious.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked me. "Of course he can't get out on his own. How could he? I mean..."

I sighed. "Why don't you show her?"

"Whatever do you mean, if I may ask?"

"What you are. Show her what you are."

"Well, even if I had a special ability of some sort, I wouldn't be able to use it in here. These shackles prevent me from making my move."

"Hey..." It was Sam again. "What does he have to show me?"

"Erm... That's... Nevermind, he can't do it anyway. Now, come, we're leaving." For the second time, I tried pulling her along with me as I walked away.

"Are you sure you should just leave like that?"

"What do you mean?" I asked him, turning around once again.

"If you leave now, I'll probably start seeing you as my enemy. I mean, you know a lot about me, even though I don't remember meeting you before, and you don't even have the heart to help an old man who was captured by ghosts."

"Says the one who is on the verge of death. But it's fine. I don't remember you ever being something else than my enemy. I can handle someone like you not being on my side." Whoa, I seriously had to watch out for where this conversation was going. If I wasn't careful, I might actually reveal something I shouldn't. Sam was probably getting anxious already.

"Oh, so you're fine with being my enemy. As much as I'm surprised, I'll put that aside for now. But are you sure it's the same for that girl?"

"What do you mean?!"

"I mean, if I become your enemy, I'll probably become _hers_ too. Are you sure that's what you want?" As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I couldn't let someone like him harm Sam. If I wanted to protect her and the others, I had to get Vlad on my side. Or at least on their side.

"All right... We're helping you." He grinned. I walked to the door. I tried shaking it a bit. To my surprise, the door was as good as coming off. I did a few steps backward.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked in confusion. I took a deep breath and gave the door my best kick. Of course, it completely came off, and almost hit Vlad while flying to the back of the cell.

"Wh-what are you doing?" She asked again. "That was... That was..."

"That door was no big deal. It was completely rusty already. Anybody could have done that."

"O-oh... I see..." I looked at Sam. "Do you have a knife of some sort?"

"A k-knife? What do you need a knife for?"

"You'll see. Do you have one?"

"No, but there's some glass over there." She pointed at a spot in the cell with some broken glass. "I think a lamp broke or something." I walked over to the glass. I grabbed a piece that looked pretty sharp and walked up to Vlad. I held the glass as tight as I could, and with my full force I swung it at othe shackles around Vlad's right wrist. I made a cut in them, and they fell off. I had also made a cut in Vlad's wrist, and it started bleeding.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

"Quit whining. Or are you suggesting that actually _hurt_?" He was silent after that. I freed him from the other shackles in the same way, making cuts in his other wrist and in his ankles. He made a deep sigh.

"Ah, that feels so much better." But before he could say another thing to me, I walked away. I grabbed Sam's hand.

"We helped him. We're leaving now." She walked along with me for a few steps. Then I heard sounds behind us. I turned, to see Vlad charging at us. He was aiming for Sam. As fast as I could, I grabbed the ecto-gun attached to Sam's belt and went at Vlad. I managed to push him against the nearest wall. I put the gun on his forehead.

"Don't try to play dumb. You were really going for the kill just now, weren't you?"

He sighed. "I guess I've been found out..."

"Sorry dude, but I've had it. Any last words?" I asked him, while pushing the gun closer to his head. He grinned. He grabbed the gun with his hand. I tightened my grip around it, to be sure.

"I deeply appreciate your help." He pulled the trigger of the gun, and it shot him. Then, he disappeared into thin air.


	23. How Could I Fall For Such A Cheap Trick?

I stared at the place where Vlad had been, just a minute ago.

_What's going on?_

"What happened?! What'd you do?" Sam asked. Apparantly, she had no idea what was going on either.

"I... I didn't do anything! He pulled the trigger himself!"

_He pulled the trigger himself..._

_So, that trigger was meant to be pulled... Well, at least in his plan..._

_He'd had a plan where he needed to disappear..._

_Think... What disappears when shot by an ecto-gun...?_

"That's it!"

"What's it?!"

"A clone..."

"A clone...?"

"He _duplicated_ himself! Vlad wasn't in jail to begin with! We only needed to think that! Or, maybe that king needed to think that! It was his clone just a minute ago! His clone killed himself! No, rather, _Vlad_ killed his clone!"

"Duplicated...? Killed his clone...? Just what is Vlad, anyway?" Sam asked me, very confused. I wanted to answer, but I didn't know what to say. Well, I didn't have time to say anything, anyway.

"_Hurry up, that sound came from this way!"_ I heard, along with several pairs of running footsteps. The guards.

"Oh no! We're in trouble!" I grabbed her hand. "Come on, this...-" I wanted to run away in the direction of the stairs, but the guards had blocked our way. And behind us was a dead end. The guards pointed their guns at us. On instinct, I took a protective stance before Sam.

"They killed the prisoner!"

"Get them!"

"Watch out, that boy has an ecto-gun!"

_Of course!_

I pointed the gun at them. "Lower your guns, or I'll shoot!"

"Same to you!" We stood their for several minutes. None of us was going to shoot like this. We wouldn't get anywhere like this.

"Hey, Danny... What should we do?"

"I don't know... Maybe I could-" I was cut off by the screams of the guards, who were falling one after another.

"What's... going on...?" I slowly asked, so soft that only Sam could hear it, and she obviously had no idea what this was either.

"What's this?! Was that it already?!"

"Those guards are pretty stupid, right!"

_Those voices..._

The last guard fell to the ground, and after some dust cleared up, we could see the faces of our saviours.

"Dash! Kwan! Valerie!"

"Hey, leader! How are you?" Dash asked.

"You know, I'm here too..." I quietly said. Sam ran up to Dash, but instead of thanking him, or even bothering to answer his question, she gave him a kick in his stomach.

"Don't surprise us like that!"

"Nice to see you too..." Dash slowly said, and passed out.

"Sam, calm down! They came to save us!" I screamed. I had run up to Sam, and lay my hand on her shoulder to make sure she didn't get any more violent. I looked at valerie and Kwan.

"But really, you surprised us. How'd you come in?"

"All the guards disappeared all of a sudden. We thought something was going, so we followed them. Pretty easily, actually, not a single person was left."

"Because they had all come here, right?"

"Yeah, apparantly."

"Oh, by the way, Valerie, how are you feeling? I mean, you got stuck in the middle of the shield after all..."

"Who do you think you're talking to? Besides, it's already been two hours! _Two hours!_ What have you two been doing here?!"

"We just met an... interesting person in here, that's all. But, he's already dead."

"Dead?!" Kwan joined in our conversation.

"Well, he sort of commited suicide." He decided not to say anything about him being a clone. Sam looked at me, her eyes asking me if she should mention the fact that he had been a clone. I lightly shook my head.

"Suicide?! Right here?!" Kwan asked. I nodded.

"Then, where's his body?" Valerie asked.

"Well, he sort of destroyed it along with his own life."

"That's..." Valerie didn't finish her sentence. And really, I didn't want her to, either.

"Anyway..." Sam started, "Let's get out of here. Before those guards wake up." We all nodded, and Kwan grabbed the still unconscious Dash, and we ran ran away like that. We reached the stairs, and started climbing them. I very soon noticed that going up was a lot harder than going down. We slowed down to a walking pace.

"Is it just me or is this a lot harder than when we came here?" Kwan asked. He was completely worn down already, since he also had to carry Dash.

"Stop complaining and come!" Sam said.

"If we were ghosts, we could just fly, but..." I slowly said.

"So what if ghosts can fly?! Climbing works just as fine!" Sam said angrily. _Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned ghosts... Now she's angry again. Well, can't really blame her._

We walked on for a while, climbing the stairs up to the ground. After finally reaching the top, we entered the main hall of the building, completely worn out. As we thought, there was still no one around.

"So... what do we do... now?" Kwan asked.

"Isn't it obvious?! We're going home!" _How can she not be out of breath?!_ We left the prison, and ended up outside. Even though it was in the middle of the night, the green light of the ghost zone was as blinding as ever when you first saw it after a while.

"HEY! OVER HERE!" A voice came from after a wall close to the entrance of the prison building. I looked as to see who the voice belonged to, but I only saw a blue waving hand.

"It couldn't be..." I whispered slowly. Sam had already spotted the waving ghost, and had run up to him. She was now holding him to the ground through some sort of martial arts technique.

"Ow! Ow! Owwieeeee! Let me go!"

"Who are you and what's your goal?! And you'd better tell the truth! Valerie, Kwan, still carrying Dash, and I ran up to Sam. _This is bad... I totally forgot about the Box Ghost... If he blows my secret here, I'm seriously doomed! What should I do? What should I do?!_

The Box Ghost lifted his head and saw me. "Ah, it's you!"

Sam looked at me. "You know him?" _This is seriously bad!_

"Well, I..." I looked at the Box Ghost. He looked really pathetic being held down by Sam. "I... That's right!" I took a heroic stance before the Box Ghost. "I spared your life last time, but you just won't leave me alone, will you?"

"What?"

"It's pathetic! Or... could it maybe be that you've already accepted defeat?!"

"What are you talking about?!"

"Yes, that's right! You've already accepted the fact that you could never match us! You know you'll die sooner or later, and you want us to defeat you, right?! I completely understand it! Well, after losing to someone once, it's only natural you'd want that person to be the one finishing you!"

"Like I said, what are you talking about?!"

"But don't worry, I'll fulfill your last wish!" I took one of the ghost nets from Valerie and held it to his face. Sam walked away, and I pushed him against the wall.

"Be ready to accept your fate, ghost scum!" I screamed. "_Don't worry, I'll free you later,"_ I whispered after that. I activated the net and caught Box Ghost in it.

"So, let's go home!" I said while turning around to the others. They were staring at me, and didn't really know what to say. I hadn't made much sense after all, but at least my secret would stay a secret.

"S-sure..." I had created a kind of awkward situation. We walked through the town in silence. Just as I wanted to ask where we were headed, I remembered how we had gotten back last time.

_"It's what we always do. We capture a ghost or two, and then we use them to fly us," Valerie told me._

_There was a little floating island, and floating behind it was a portal. One that I knew very well._

_I turned around, waiting for the portal to open, like Sam told me. Our portal... We're gonna use our portal to get back to Amity Park._

That was right. We were gonna capture a ghost, and after Sam would abuse it really badly, it would fly us to our portal. I wondered what kind of ghost they'd catch this time, since it was impossible for Box Ghost to fly us.

"Hey, Sam..."

"What?"

"We're gonna catch another ghost now, right?"

"Well, of course! Or did you think that blue idiot could manage?"

"Hey, I have my pride too!" he stated.

"Shut up!" Sam told him.

"So, what do we do?"

"Let's just search for an ectopus or two," Sam said.

We were walking through town, searching and searching, but it was really deserted. We couldn't find a single ghost, so we stopped to take a break.

"Where are all the ghosts when you need them?" Kwan complained.

"Maybe you're scaring them away," Valerie answered him.

"Hey, I'm not that scary!" He came closer to me. "I'm not that scary, right?" He whispered.

"I wouldn't know."

"I~can~hear~you..." Valerie sang softly.

"Everyone, shut up, or we'll stop resting right now."

"I'm sorry," Valerie and Kwan said together. I sighed. None of them would ever change. But it really bothered that there were no ghosts at all. Suddenly, I thought I heard voices. I listened closely. Yes, there were really voices.

"Really, I mean it! This is the last time!"

"Oh, Kitty, wait! Don't go!"

"Why wouldn't I?!"

"Because I love you?"

"Oh, sure, and that's why you keep looking at other girls, don't you?!"

_Kitty? Than the other must be Johnny... And where Johnny is, there's..._

"Guys, I have an idea."

"An idea? What kind of idea?"

"Just follow me." I ran in the direction of Johnny's and Kitty's voices.

"Where are we going?!"

"Just trust me!" I turned around the corner, and saw Johnny and Kitty arguing. Johnny's bike was standing next to him. Johnny and Kitty turned around.

"Huh? Kids? What are they..." Johnny started. While we ran past them, I grabbed his bike along.

"Hey, give me back my bike!" He sent his shadow after us.

"Why'd you take his bike?" Kwan asked, while running away.

"You'll see." I started the bike and got into the driver's seat. I pressed a button and sidecars appeared on both sides.

"Jump on!"

"Why should we-" The shadow was getting closer, and they didn't really have a choice. Sam jumped on the bike behind me. Kwan lay Dash in one of the sidecars and jumped in the other one together with Valerie.

"Hey, what about me?!" Box Ghost asked, still caught in the net. I needed my hands to steer, so I couldn't hold him. Seeing no toher option, I put him down in the sidecar on top of Dash.

"Okay, so we're riding the bike. And now?" Sam asked, clinging to me since we were riding so fast. My eyes quickly scanned the buttons.

"Yes, he's upgraded it!"

"You mean you didn't know?!"

"Well, I didn't have the time to ask him, did I?" Suddenly I heard a scream next to me.

"Oh, Dash, you're awake."

"WHAT'S GOING ON?! WHY AM I HERE?! WHY IS THERE A GHOST ON TOP OF ME?! HELP!"

"Quiet! We'll explain later, right now we need to get away."

"How?!" Valerie asked.

"Like... this!" I drove towards a hill on top speed, and of course it launched us all the way into the air.

"Wh-wh-what are you doing?! We'll fall! We'll really fall! And do you know what hapens when we fall from this height?! WE DIE!" Sam screamed. I ignored her. I pressed the button that I had seen earlier.

_Please work._


	24. How Much Have We Been Deceived?

I pressed the button, and what I had hoped for happened. Beneath us, a green hole of ectoplasm formed. A ghost portal. Created by the portable ghost portal Johnny had stolen from my parents. Our bike drove (or actually fell) into the portal, just before it closed. We ended up somewhere in the forest next to Amity Park. I wanted to stop, but just in front of the portal was a tree, and we crashed into it. The bike fell, while losing both its passengers and a lot of its parts.

"Is... is everyone okay?" I asked. I was lying on my back on the grass. From this position, I was able to take a good look at the stars. It was all really pretty, so pretty that I almost didn't hear everyone's respond.

"Of course we're not okay! That was... that was..." Sam started.

"Really stupid of me, right? Sorry..."

"Don't forget risky!" Sam added. I sat up and looked around. Sam was lying next to me, facing the ground. She was still catching some breath. Further away from us, there was... Valerie and Kwan, still unconscious. The other way was Dash, a big wound on his forehead from which there was still blood pouring, and... a broken ghost net, content missing. _Well, there isn't much evil he can do, anyway._

"It looks like the others didn't get away with just a startle, like we did," I said while pointing to Dash's forehead wound.

"That's your fault, you know?"

"How could I have known there would be a tree right in front of us here?"

"You should have known something like this was bound to happen when you decided to drag us along on something so dangerous. What were you thinking, anyway?"

"I... don't know." In fact, I was just hoping to find a way so Sam wouldn't have to go to _that _place again. It had obviously been incredibly hard on her just talking about it, let alone go there.

I walked up to the bike. It was all shattered around the place. The crash had also caused the portable portal device to break and the portal to close, so no one could follow us from the Ghost Zone. Then, I, and apparantly Sam too, heard some sounds behind me. Valerie had woken up. Sam and I and walked up to her, and Sam sat down beside her.

"Don't push yourself too much. Here, can you stand?" Sam offered her a hand, and Valerie took it. After that, we woke Kwan up, whose wounds didn't seem too bad either. Then, we went to Dash.

"Waaaahhhhh!"

"What's wrong?!" I screamed out of surprise.

"The net! With the ghost! Who did this?!"

"Oh. I think the net ripped during our crash just now, so the ghost could escape." Sam looked really mad now. She walked up to Dash, who was the heaviest injured of us all. She stood there for a while, clenching her fists.

"HOW LONG DO YOU PLAN ON LYING THERE?!" She screamed, while kicking him in his face, and other places on his head.

I panicked a little. "Sam! That's not helping! You're only making his injuries worse! He won't wake up like that!"

Sam stopped, but she was obviously angry. The she started roaring, followed by a "WHY IS HE THE MOST USELESS OF US ALL?!"

Kwan interrupted. "The actual question is, why do you keep choosing him for important missions?" Sam looked our way. Her face was really frightening, and Kwan quickly apologized.

"I guess we have no choice. We'll have to carry him back to the HQ. Oh, and if anyone hadn't noticed yet, we'll also have to walk. The bike's totally fallen apart."

"Ah, you've got to be kidding me..." Kwan started, "Now I can be the one to carry him back, again, right?"

"Don't worry, I'll take care of him this time."

"YOU?!" They all said.

"I'm a lot stronger than I look, you know?" Especially since I _look_ really weak. I thought, no, rather hoped, that they'd be impressed, but they all burst out laughing. "I'm not kidding, you know?"

"Yeah, sure..." Sam said, while still laughing. "Kwan, you should..." She stopped talking because I had walked up to Dash. I grabbed him, and after I finally found a comfortable position to hold him (I had no problem with his weight, but his size was causing me some trouble) I walked away. When I noticed no one was following, I turned around.

"Well? Aren't you coming?" Still impressed, they quietly followed me as we walked back to Casper High. There, we were greeted by a surprised Tucker. We hadn't contacted any one to come pick us up at the portal, so our sudden return was quite unexpected. We left Kwan and Valerie with him to explain what we'd found, and Sam and I took Dash to the gymnasium.

"Is it really okay not to have anyone see to his wounds?" I asked Sam.

"Just leave him there. He'll recover."

"Okay, if you say so..." After that, it was silent for a moment.

"Hey, Danny..."

"Hmm?"

"Why did you do something that dangerous? Stealing that bike, I mean. The ghost could've caught you. That portal could've been broken, or not have been there at all. We'd have crashed if that happened."

"We still crashed, though."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

I sighed. "You... don't like going to _that_ place again, do you? Where that friend of yours died."

"Don't tell me you did it all for me."

"I'm pretty stupid, aren't I?"

"It doesn't stop at 'stupid'. You're the biggest idiot I know."

I let out a quiet laugh. "Yeah, you're right..."

"But I..."

She was silent.

"I don't exactly hate that part of you..." She wasn't facing me, but I just knew she was blushing.

"I think I'll go see Tucker. I have something I need to ask him."

"Go on ahead."

"Thanks." I smiled while walking to the door. There, I stopped for a second.

"Why are you thanking me? Idiot..." And I exited the gymnasium. I headed for Tucker's 'lab'. When I came there, I just saw Valerie and Kwan leave. I sighed and went in. I saw Tucker, turning in the direction of the door.

"Oh, hey. When I heard the door, I thought 'Did Val and Kwan forget something?', but it's just you."

"Hey..." Tucker turned and faced his half-finished invention, a ghost gun. To the left were some finished guns, to the right were a lot of parts for making ones.

"Val and Kwan told me how you came back here. I was really surprised. I thought for sure you'd contact one of us before returning. And just when I was starting to get worried, you came back."

"But I was amazed you were still up. It's about 5 a.m. now."

"I was making these."

"I see. You do stay up making inventions a lot, don't you? But that's not what I wanted to ask."

"You wanted to ask me something?"

"Yes. About the guy who told you about the third prison."

"Oh, that guy."

"Who is he, really?"

"Even I don't really know. I just know that he leads an anti-ghost company called 'DALV' somewhere in Wisconsin..."


	25. Adding Two And Two

"DALV..." My eyes grew bigger as I repeated that word in my mind. Maybe out loud too, I couldn't really tell. Tucker was speaking to me, but I ignored him. No, in fact, I couldn't understand his words. My mind was way too focused on trying to connect all of the pieces.

_DALV sent them there..._

_Vlad sent them there..._

_There, they found Vlad..._

_Vlad sent them to Vlad..._

_So, Vlad needed someone to go to him... I mean, his clone..._

_Did he let his clone get caught on purpose...?_

_But if he did, why send someone to rescue it?_

_Well, we didn't really rescue it, in fact, we killed it..._

_No, it killed itself..._

_Why send us to rescue his clone, and then killing it before we have a chance to?_

I sighed. I couldn't see the connection after all. Just as I was about to give up, I remembered something.

_"They killed the prisoner!"_

_The guards, no, probably the king too, think we killed it._

_They think it's dead..._

_They think Vlad's dead..._

"They think Vlad's dead!" I yelled out as I suddenly felt a feeling of triumph. A feeling of finally having found a clue. Tucker, who had apparantly been calling me for a while, looked at me with a weird expression.

"What're you talking about?" I looked at him, and realized what I'd just said.

"Oh, nothing, just mumbling to myself," I quickly told him. I couldn't tell whether my lie was obvious enough for him to suspect anything, or just to make him think I was being weird. I figured from his lack of reply that he wasn't completely following me, so I decided to break the silence. I would have had to say this anyway.

"I'm sorry, but I've got somewhere to go now," I told him. Without waiting for a reply, I ran off, noticing the volume of his calls slowly going down the farther away I got. I thought I ran past Sam as I left the lab, but I wasn't really sure. I checked my wristwatch. 5:30 a.m., it said. I rushed out of Casper and went straight to my house. If I took the Spector Speeder now, and went on full speed, I'd be in Wisconsin just around the time any normal company would open. I rushed over the road, there weren't any cars anyway. And even if there were, there was no way they would be driving at this time of the day. And, by the slim chance that would happen, I still had ghost powers. So I felt pretty safe running on the road. I soon got close to my house, and kicked the door open, only to realize it hadn't been locked. I sighed, and went down to the basement. It still looked the same as always, besides that it was even more of a mess, and a lot of inventions I knew were missing. _Maybe they were stolen,_ I thought to myself. I opened the door to the secret hallway, where the Spector Speeder was usually parked. But I was greeted by a different scenery from what I had expected. A lot of loose parts were lying here and there, some I could recognize as part of the Spector. I slowly walked over to them.

"What's this?" No matter how I looked at it, someone had been on a rampage in here, destroying all of the machinery, and probably taking the missing inventions too. Then I noticed something lying in the middle of the mess. I picked it up, and recognized it as a blueprint. Though I couldn't tell what was written on it because the middle part was soaking wet, I could vaguely see the outlines of the Spector.

"The blueprints of the Spector? What are these doing here? And why's only the middle wet?" I didn't understand what was going on, but one thing I clearly understood. This thing wasn't going to take me to Wisconsin. I left the secret hallway back to the lab, closing the door behind me. I thought for a while. What to do now? I figured just hanging in the lab wouldn't solve my problems, so I went up again. And that's when I got an idea. I went to Jazz's room and removed her carpet.

"One to the upcenter."

**Sam POV**

It had been several minutes since Danny went to the lab to talk with Tucker, and I was getting bored all alone. I thought about how Tucker had been making our weapons, and remembered I wanted to talk with him about ordering another 50 of those things. Actually, I knew it was just an excuse to go there and see how those two were doing, but I managed to convince myself of the fact that I really needed to see him. Just as I got close to Tucker's lab, someone ran past me, and just before I lost sight of him, I managed to recognize him as Danny. Behind me, I could hear Tucker calling him. I quickly ran up to him. "What's going on?" I asked him, since he clearly was panicking a little.

"I don't know... All of a sudden, he started acting weird, and then he ran off..." Tuck told me. I looked at him with a confused face.

"I don't get it... Where's he going anyway?"

"Well... I'm not sure, but he started acting like that after I mentioned DALV..."

A small slight of fear managed to form on my face. "The DALV company?! You mean he's going to Wisconsin?!" Besides a lot of shock, and some anger, I also felt a little bit of fear. I quickly grasped Tuck's hand. "C'mon, we're folowing him!" I ran after him as quickly as I could, pulling Tucker with me in the process, despite his desperate calls for me to go a little slower. When I got out of Casper, it took me a little trouble to found out which way he went, because he was almost out of my sight, but I could still see him, and I could run faster than he could. Or that was what I thought. Luckily for me, I wasn't slower than him either, so the distance between us stayed the same the entire time. But because of this, I had no time to notice my surroundings, I couldn't take my eye off of him, or I'd lose him. Finally, he entered some building. I felt relieved, and was about to enter after him.

"Sam, you'll really want to stop now to take a look around you," it suddenly sounded behind me. I stopped and turned around.

"What's it this time, Tucker?" But he didn't answer, instead he just looked up. I sighed and looked the same way he did. That's when I realized it. 'Fenton Works,' it clearly said. "Why are we..." I managed to bring out. No, I couldn't stop here just because of some stupid trauma. I held Tucker's hand a little tighter.

"What are we waiting for, we need to follow him, and Tucker and I entered the house after him. I couldn't spot him in either the living room or the kitchen.

"Great, where to go now?" I asked. Tucker thought for a moment.

"If he's planning to go to Wisconsin, he must have gone up there. It's the only way of transportation in here, besides the RV."

I chuckled. "I'm really gonna have him properly explain this to us once we find him. I went upstairs. Suddenly, Tucker stopped.

"Do you know how to get there?"

I looked a little angry. "Of course I do." I had seen _him_ do it before, and somehow I'd managed to remember it until today. There were several rooms with a way to get there, and I tried to think of one. The first one to pop up in my mind was his parents' bedroom, so I went in there with Tucker, and moved the bed a little, standing on top of the metal plate with Tuck.

"Two to the upcenter," I repeated from my mind. Soon, some kind of pipe came down and sucked us up. I closed my eyes, finding it secretly a little scary. I'd done it only once before, and back then, _he_ was there to reassure me it was safe. When I opened my eyes, we'd already arrived there. I looked around.

"That's weird? Where's he?" Tucker asked before I had a chance to.

"How would I now?" I stubbornly told him. I walked to the back of the room, and Tucker happened to do the same. After looking around for a few moments, I heard a sound I had heard before. On instinct, I hid myself behind one of the machines, and quickly pulled Tucker next to me.

"Why are we hiding?" he whispered to me.

To be honest, I didn't really know the answer. But there was no reason to tell him that. "Just shut your mouth, okay?" I whispered back. Soon, the sounds stopped, and a new individual entered the space.

"Huh? Danny?" I whispered to myself. _But how? He'd been ahead of us all the time? Why did he arrive after us?_ I tried searching searching for answers, but my mind just wouldn't work well. That's why it may have been better that I was suddenly given a reason to stop thinking about these questions. He sat down in the driver's seat and started pressing all kinds of buttons.

"Does he even know what he's doing?" I whispered to myself. Tucker knew it was better to just stay silent when I was like this. Suddenly, the ground shook under our feet. The upcenter let go of its footing, grew a blim and flew away. Soon after, it dropped the blim and grew in length. The interior changed a little, for example with passenger's chairs showing up, and the speed drastically increased. If it was not for the huge human-like balloon popping out of the steering wheel calling himself 'Auto-Jack,' I would have been sure we'd have crashed into a building any moment now.

"To Wisconsin," I heard Danny say just before he sat down in one of the passenger's chairs. So he really was planning to visit DALV. But why? I didn't know. I hit the machine after which I was hiding just hard enough to let out some of the tension piled up inside of me, but I soon realized it was a bad move. It turned out some little inventions had been piled up on the machine, and, because of the punch I gave it, they were now falling on the ground, one by one.


End file.
